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Should IT Professionals Be Exempt From Overtime Regulations?
Paul Fernhout writes: Nick Hanauer is a billionaire who made his fortune as one of the original investors in Amazon. He suggests President Obama should restore U.S. overtime regulations to how they worked in the 1970s to boost the economy. Quoted by PBS NewsHour: "In 1975, more than 65 percent of salaried American workers earned time-and-a-half pay for every hour worked over 40 hours a week. Not because capitalists back then were more generous, but because it was the law. It still is the law, except that the value of the threshold for overtime pay — the salary level at which employers are required to pay overtime — has been allowed to erode to less than the poverty line for a family of four today. Only workers earning an annual income of under $23,660 qualify for mandatory overtime.
Many millions of Americans are currently exempt from the overtime rules — teachers, federal employees, doctors, computer professionals, etc. — and corporate leaders are lobbying hard to expand "computer professional" to mean just about anybody who uses a computer. Which is almost everybody. But were the Labor Department instead to narrow these exemptions, millions more Americans would receive the overtime pay they deserve. ... The twisted irony is, when you work more hours for less pay, you hurt not only yourself, you hurt the real economy by depressing wages, increasing unemployment and reducing demand and innovation. Ironically, when you earn less, and unemployment is high, it even hurts capitalists like me." If overtime pay is generally good for the economy, should most IT professionals really be exempt from overtime regulations?
Many millions of Americans are currently exempt from the overtime rules — teachers, federal employees, doctors, computer professionals, etc. — and corporate leaders are lobbying hard to expand "computer professional" to mean just about anybody who uses a computer. Which is almost everybody. But were the Labor Department instead to narrow these exemptions, millions more Americans would receive the overtime pay they deserve. ... The twisted irony is, when you work more hours for less pay, you hurt not only yourself, you hurt the real economy by depressing wages, increasing unemployment and reducing demand and innovation. Ironically, when you earn less, and unemployment is high, it even hurts capitalists like me." If overtime pay is generally good for the economy, should most IT professionals really be exempt from overtime regulations?
Dear government! My nasty employer would not pay me, what I deserve. Please, pass a law to make him pay me more.
No, you don't "deserve" anything other than what you negotiate. If you don't like your pay, look for another job — things, including your labor, do not have inherent value. Everything is worth exactly as much, as someone is willing to pay for it.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Not this fucking shit again. Hours spent in the workplace != hours spent actually working.
Have you ever met a fucking wop? They might get in at 7:30 in the morning and go home at 8 in the evening, but they'll take a dozen 15 minute smoke breaks plus a three hour lunch. And spend two hours on personal phone calls.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
So, they pay for 2 employees instead of 1, their COG goes up, sales go down, then they have to fire 1 of the 2 and end up with a smaller, less profitable business than they started with.
And no one is forced into 80 hour work weeks. Slavery was abolished over a century ago. If you don't want to work 80 hours, quit or convince your employer to pay you 1/2 your income (including benefits) if your work is limited to 40 hours.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law