Yes. The government has the power to govern, even to govern private agreements.
Employers are not permitted to screw all of their employees. Just employees who make more than $27.63 per hour, or who agree to be paid salary instead of hourly.
Anyone working hourly for $27.63 or less is entitled to time-and-a-half for any hours worked over 8 per day or 40 per week.
You'll note that what they didn't do was make the workers compete with the out-of-work people for the 40-hour jobs, thus inducing them to take less and less pay.
More people working reasonable hours for decent pay is far better than fewer people working egregious hours for shitty pay.
But guess which one is the goal of our current economic system.
Yes, they are. And they are because of the act that this bill is amending. Because this bill isn't amending it to make IT workers exempt. It's just rewriting the whole paragraph that already made them exempt, to use different language and making some other people exempt.
Whoever wrote this summary doesn't know what they're doing when reading legal stuff.
It likely started out as a round number, and has been adjusted by a round percentage at one or more times.
However, as long as I've been working (and that's decades), the cutoff for exempt status has been $28/hour. I didn't know before this that it was exactly $27.63, but I suspect that hasn't changed in at least that long. Note that this number hasn't changed, but the minimum wage has been pushed up, along with all other forms of inflation.
What that means is that the amount of overtime pay lost by salaried and high-paid hourly employees has been rising relative to inflation, for all that time.
Rarely, you'll get into a situation where you have actual visibility in the company, and relationships that you can leverage for advancement. It's reasonable in that case to make the wager that your extra productivity will get you something in return in the future.
Mostly, though, you are correct. Give a corporation nothing you aren't fully compensated for. They will give you jack shit in return for free work, and the first time they screw something else up and need to cut heads in order to make a number fit into their arbitrary financial projections, they'll boot you out into the street. They're taught to do that in Business School, and required to do it by their shareholders, who don't even see you as being relevant to any of the numbers they care about. If they even know that "cost of goods sold" and "R&D" and "G&A" mean "pay for heads in production and development and management", it's because they've been to B-school, too, and have been dissuaded from having any feelings about whether you're there or not.
When going from hourly to salary, and negotiating yoru pay, you can ask them what the benefits are worth, deduct that from your hourly, and say "I want at least this much in salary". In fact, you can ask for more, on the grounds that now they'll be getting free overtime and sarariman loyalty out of you.
If you just take the shit offer they put in front of you, that's a you problem.
Anyone who gets a college degree who doesn't understand the truth about economics should sue their university.
Unfortunately, colleges generally only require a semester of distributed credits, and don't require economics, and the gut course in economics is that Adam Smith bullshit that teaches you to screw yourself in negotiations and accept the lovely job the otherwise-just-a-slave-driver is paying you peanuts to do.
I've worked for (literally) dozens of companies. I've never got time-and-a-half if my base pay was a salary or over $28 per hour (and it's been over $28 per hour since my second job in college). I have been paid the regular rate for random excess hours worked, but only when I was hourly. I have also been paid for excess hours worked when I was on salary, but only when the need for that extra work was scheduled in advance.
One company didn't pay for excess hours for salaried people even if scheduled in advance until the excess was over 10% of their normal workweek (and never paid for that first 10%). Sort of a compromise between "you are salaried, you don't get paid hourly", and "but we don't want you to quit because we're taking extreme advantage of you". And note that it's workweek. Not workday. One 18-hour day plus four 6.5-hour days = no extra pay.
If you're hourly, you will get paid for your hours, just not time-and-a-half.
This has always been true for most of us. This bill doesn't change it for us. It does change it for people who were slipping through some cracks in the definitions. But most IT workers were already covered by the existing law, so this is a non-issue for almost everyone.
They passed a constitutional amendment a decade or three ago that prevents them from raising their pay in the same congressional session. Gives you a chance to vote the bastards out for it. Probably the best you can do.
Aside from that, I don't see anything new in this. Salaried employees and people making over a certain amount are the definition of "exempt employee", and the "exempt" means the company is exempt from the labor laws governing overtime for such employees.
It's surprising to me that somehow this doesn't apply to some workers. I'm not sure why IT workers are singled out.
So I went and read the bill, and the act it's modifying (look for section 213 paragraph (a)(17) if it doesn't take you straight there), and you know what? Not much is changing.
What it looks like it's doing, rather than adding IT workers, who were already "exempt", if they were salaried or were paid hourly over the limit amount, is clarifying that IT managers and trainers are also to be considered "exempt employees."
What we learned here today: Eyeballs are useful tools.
A good scientist will design the experiment before collecting the data. If he spots patterns, it's because something interesting happened to another experiment. Then he'll design a new experiment to collect data on the interesting thing.
Seriously, this is a non-problem. Don't waste resources keeping and managing the data if you can make more. And I can't imagine how you can't make more data from DNA. The stuff is everywhere.
But they don't have to collect it if they can't analyze it, because DNA isn't going away any time soon.
It's like trying to fill your swimming pool before you've dug it. I hope you have a sealed foundation, because you've got too much water. You might as well wait, because it's stupid to think you'll lose your water connection before the pool is done.
Same way they've got too much data. No reason for them to be filling up disk space now if they can just get the data again when they know what to do with it.
Slashdot Mirror
Wait. You think you're going to be shot if you vote in public, so you don't mind a system where you can't protect your vote from simply being ignored?
Get out of my America.
If they're discussing it with us, it's in their way.
Take as much data as you need to test your analysis methods, then ramp up data collection when your analysis works.
And random drug testing.
And random IQ testing, come to think of it.
Almost anyone making over $28/hour has been exempt for as long as I can remember.
If you're working a job that typically requires more than 40 hours a week, and you accepted a salary, then you got screwed by a superior negotiator.
Says who? You?
Because I have 9 Supreme Court justices, who are just the latest in a long line of such folks, who say you're full of it.
I'm guessing politically correct but economically nonsensical.
Yes. The government has the power to govern, even to govern private agreements.
Employers are not permitted to screw all of their employees. Just employees who make more than $27.63 per hour, or who agree to be paid salary instead of hourly.
Anyone working hourly for $27.63 or less is entitled to time-and-a-half for any hours worked over 8 per day or 40 per week.
You'll note that what they didn't do was make the workers compete with the out-of-work people for the 40-hour jobs, thus inducing them to take less and less pay.
More people working reasonable hours for decent pay is far better than fewer people working egregious hours for shitty pay.
But guess which one is the goal of our current economic system.
You mean the new bill adds the part about middle managers that wasn't in the existing law.
Yes, they are. And they are because of the act that this bill is amending. Because this bill isn't amending it to make IT workers exempt. It's just rewriting the whole paragraph that already made them exempt, to use different language and making some other people exempt.
Whoever wrote this summary doesn't know what they're doing when reading legal stuff.
It likely started out as a round number, and has been adjusted by a round percentage at one or more times.
However, as long as I've been working (and that's decades), the cutoff for exempt status has been $28/hour. I didn't know before this that it was exactly $27.63, but I suspect that hasn't changed in at least that long. Note that this number hasn't changed, but the minimum wage has been pushed up, along with all other forms of inflation.
What that means is that the amount of overtime pay lost by salaried and high-paid hourly employees has been rising relative to inflation, for all that time.
That depends.
Rarely, you'll get into a situation where you have actual visibility in the company, and relationships that you can leverage for advancement. It's reasonable in that case to make the wager that your extra productivity will get you something in return in the future.
Mostly, though, you are correct. Give a corporation nothing you aren't fully compensated for. They will give you jack shit in return for free work, and the first time they screw something else up and need to cut heads in order to make a number fit into their arbitrary financial projections, they'll boot you out into the street. They're taught to do that in Business School, and required to do it by their shareholders, who don't even see you as being relevant to any of the numbers they care about. If they even know that "cost of goods sold" and "R&D" and "G&A" mean "pay for heads in production and development and management", it's because they've been to B-school, too, and have been dissuaded from having any feelings about whether you're there or not.
You screwed yourself.
When going from hourly to salary, and negotiating yoru pay, you can ask them what the benefits are worth, deduct that from your hourly, and say "I want at least this much in salary". In fact, you can ask for more, on the grounds that now they'll be getting free overtime and sarariman loyalty out of you.
If you just take the shit offer they put in front of you, that's a you problem.
Anyone who gets a college degree who doesn't understand the truth about economics should sue their university.
Unfortunately, colleges generally only require a semester of distributed credits, and don't require economics, and the gut course in economics is that Adam Smith bullshit that teaches you to screw yourself in negotiations and accept the lovely job the otherwise-just-a-slave-driver is paying you peanuts to do.
People unionize because they're being collectively fucked. Anyone trying to turn that on its head is working for the fuckers.
Theoretically, yes.
Practically, only if you'd like to be done, permanently. Capiche?
I've worked for (literally) dozens of companies. I've never got time-and-a-half if my base pay was a salary or over $28 per hour (and it's been over $28 per hour since my second job in college). I have been paid the regular rate for random excess hours worked, but only when I was hourly. I have also been paid for excess hours worked when I was on salary, but only when the need for that extra work was scheduled in advance.
One company didn't pay for excess hours for salaried people even if scheduled in advance until the excess was over 10% of their normal workweek (and never paid for that first 10%). Sort of a compromise between "you are salaried, you don't get paid hourly", and "but we don't want you to quit because we're taking extreme advantage of you". And note that it's workweek. Not workday. One 18-hour day plus four 6.5-hour days = no extra pay.
If you're salaried, you already agreed to that.
If you're hourly, you will get paid for your hours, just not time-and-a-half.
This has always been true for most of us. This bill doesn't change it for us. It does change it for people who were slipping through some cracks in the definitions. But most IT workers were already covered by the existing law, so this is a non-issue for almost everyone.
Haha. No. Congressional pay is a fucking joke, especially to anyone who's good at IT. The medical benefits are worth more.
They make all their money from book deals, that (so far) legal form of insider trading they engage in, and skimming their campaign funds.
They passed a constitutional amendment a decade or three ago that prevents them from raising their pay in the same congressional session. Gives you a chance to vote the bastards out for it. Probably the best you can do.
Aside from that, I don't see anything new in this. Salaried employees and people making over a certain amount are the definition of "exempt employee", and the "exempt" means the company is exempt from the labor laws governing overtime for such employees.
It's surprising to me that somehow this doesn't apply to some workers. I'm not sure why IT workers are singled out.
So I went and read the bill, and the act it's modifying (look for section 213 paragraph (a)(17) if it doesn't take you straight there), and you know what? Not much is changing.
What it looks like it's doing, rather than adding IT workers, who were already "exempt", if they were salaried or were paid hourly over the limit amount, is clarifying that IT managers and trainers are also to be considered "exempt employees."
What we learned here today: Eyeballs are useful tools.
A good scientist will design the experiment before collecting the data. If he spots patterns, it's because something interesting happened to another experiment. Then he'll design a new experiment to collect data on the interesting thing.
Seriously, this is a non-problem. Don't waste resources keeping and managing the data if you can make more. And I can't imagine how you can't make more data from DNA. The stuff is everywhere.
Uh, why?
Are genes going to stop interacting before you've figured out how to analyze them properly?
No.
Figure out what you're going to do when you collect the data, then collect the data.
The data will still be collectible. Even if it's not worth anything on eBay...
Sure there is.
They're collecting data they can't analyze yet.
But they don't have to collect it if they can't analyze it, because DNA isn't going away any time soon.
It's like trying to fill your swimming pool before you've dug it. I hope you have a sealed foundation, because you've got too much water. You might as well wait, because it's stupid to think you'll lose your water connection before the pool is done.
Same way they've got too much data. No reason for them to be filling up disk space now if they can just get the data again when they know what to do with it.
Or put it out in the wild where slashdot can get at it.
There. Fixed that for you.