13 ms·

I don't know how businesses get away without paying overtime. My life is finite. My work hours are finite. If you want more hours out of me, you pay for them.

wtvanhest 10y ago
Businesses pay for the overtime, but not at 150% of the base rate.
- jws 10y ago
  This is more about which salaried employees are exempt, that is they don't get overtime. The theory is if you are pulling an oar then, you get overtime if you are hourly or yearly paid. If you are in charge of the ship then you don't have to get overtime. The problem was the law set a fixed annual income as the test for exemption and this got eroded away by inflation. The Obama rule was an attempt to restore the original intent of the law.
- vidarh 10y ago
  People covered by these exemptions are often not paid overtime at all, as the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require any overtime pay if you fall under the exemptions. These exemptions are meant to cover people in certain job roles where output is measured by work delivered, not hours spent, and where the person has independent responsibility for controlling their working hours to certain extent and were overtime as such is in theory voluntary. The threshold in question exists to make it harder to "define away" overtime pay obligations by pretending a role is more independent than it is, by connecting it to pay levels that makes it more likely that the role does in fact meet the intent of the law. The old/current levels makes a total mockery of that It's worth noting that this change also follows a change in 2004 that went the other way - redefining large groups of previously non-exempt lower level supervisors etc. as exempt, drastically cutting their rights to overtime pay.
  - syshum 10y ago
    >>>>These exemptions are meant to cover people in certain job roles where output is measured by work delivered, not hours spent, and where the person has independent responsibility for controlling their working hours to certain extent and were overtime as such is in theory voluntary. While that is the stated reason, if you actually read the law it becomes clear that these exemptions are meant to cover people in certain job roles where the lobbyist paid congress the correct amount of money to get their preferred job roles exempted >>>>It's worth noting that this change also follows a change in 2004 that went the other way Yes and many (myself included) are wondering why the 2004 Rules in favor of business are with in the scope of DOL power, but the 2016 rules are not. Legally speaking if the 2016 rules are not valid than neither are the 2004 rules
refurb 10y ago
I don't know. I kind of like being exempt. If I get my work done early and I decide the take the afternoon off, my paycheck is the same. That said I'm lucky and my company freely comps additional paid time off when I start working more than 40 hours per week.
- noobermin 10y ago
  A minor point, but this rule was to help others who don't have your kind of work to have some protections.
- jjoonathan 10y ago
  People talk about "getting their work done" as if an equal amount of work were doled out every day to each worker and getting it done were a "you eat what you kill" result of being highly productive. Is this work-assignment principle common? I could see why a manager might distribute work this way, but I've never seen it actually happen -- it has always been "oh great, you finished early today, you'll have twice as much work tomorrow." The optimistic explanation is that I haven't found a good manager + workplace yet and I should keep looking. The pessimistic explanation is that "getting your work done" is a sign of success at the game of politics on one hand and masterful framing on the other, rather than a result of skillful software engineering. I'm right out of school, I've only had one job, so I don't have a very good sample to make up my own mind from. I'd appreciate hearing opinions on the matter.
  - tbrownaw 10y ago
    I have a mostly infinite to-do list, so my work is never done. When I'm on a more well-defined project, I'll have a deadline and a set of things to do based on how fast I work and what we (me, the project manager, maybe the other developers on the project) think is reasonable. Several co-workers usually have a single project where work is lumpy. They can have a several-day to-do list one week, and be twiddling their thumbs waiting on other people the next week. I don't know anyone who gets a daily task list that isn't calibrated to their skill level.
  - thinkmassive 10y ago
Gustomaximus 10y ago
I can understand it for higher earners. You are well compensated, typically better conditions and have employment options should the enviroment become toxic. For lower pays absolutely. If an employers agrees to X contracted hours/rate and then demands X+ hours because they know you cant say no, this is essentially theft. And to not pass this as rule essentially mandates it as OK. I hope this gets sorted. I suspect this judge and any future politicians/judges involved will come under a heap of scrutiny/pressure over this. It is simply too clearly unjust not to pass it. It would follow a person for the rest of their career and they would know it.
- ianai 10y ago
  Your first sentence is the justification for paying people less than 40k year and expecting 80 hours of work out of them. It doesn't hold up.
- thinkmassive 10y ago
  > I can understand it for higher earners What's the cutoff that determines when someone is classified as a higher earner?
  - abduhl 10y ago
    4. The employee’s hourly rate of pay, or annual salary if paid on salaried basis, meets a minimum threshold amount set by California’s Division of Labor Statistics and Research (DLSR). For 2015, the DLSR set the amounts at $41.27 per hour or annual salary of not less than $85,981.40 for full time employment, and paid not less than $7,165.12 per month.
  - cowl 10y ago
    There should be no cutoff. it's either paid for all (as it should be) or for none. How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?
    - coldtea 10y ago
      >How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more? The same way we say that people must have less stuff, including health care, college for their kids, etc., because they earn less.
rbanffy 10y ago
It only works when you are not an easily replaceable commodity. Unless your extra more expensive hours are something your employer can't readily find on the market, it'd trivial to acquire more hours from someone else for a cheaper rate.
mikekchar 10y ago
I don't think your stance is unreasonable. Far from it. However, as a worker, I prefer to get paid a lump sum per month as long as I am free to manage my time. I work extra when I want to work extra (which usually coincides with my employer needing some extra help). When I need time off, I take it. Normally I work more than I get paid for. Sometimes disaster strikes, or illness, or once in a lifetime opportunities. I want my employer to respect what I do and give me the opportunity to take the time that I need. I freely give them my time. They freely give me my space. I've worked in places where they track every second. You have a certain number of sick days and god help you if you need more. Punch in. Punch out. Emergencies happen and I'm off to my manager to sign off my overtime slip before I'll even think about stemming the flow of money resulting from downtime. I could go on for a long time, but you get the point. I don't like working for places that act that way. And while I understand the necessity to protect those that must work in such terrible conditions, I don't want to give up the way I like to live: where we both freely give each other what we need. One quick final comment. I don't leave this to chance. I tell my employers pretty clearly that this is how I like to live. If they can't accommodate me, it's usually a sign for me to start looking elsewhere to work. Not everybody has that luxury, but I think it is the ideal they should strive for rather than what people usually ask for (overtime pay).
- ianai 10y ago
  You can't optimize for the best interpretation and faithful adherence to the law. Just because some drivers could actually drive safely at night with their lights off doesn't make that an ok thing for everybody to do.
SketchySeaBeast 10y ago
In my country / province (Canada / Alberta), IT workers are considered professionals and as such we are overtime exempt while we in no way qualify as "high earners" compared to a lot of the surrounding vocations - is that the same where you are, or are we just getting a raw deal up here?
- onchidiacea 10y ago
  I'm a contractor, and prefer to remain so, after a brief stint as a permanent, ten years back, with an employer that just expected its staff to pull all-nighters and weekends with no notice, no overtime pay and no time in lieu. I prefer to work hourly rates, so that the moment I am asked to work overtime, I can just start charging for it. Unfortunately it's been a long time since I saw a contract here in Australia on anything other than a daily rate - so now, if I ever have to work overtime in a day, then I just make that up by working fewer hours the next. And then if asked to work weekends, then I charge per day for that, too. I've never accepted the argument that because "professionals" get paid more that we're handing a blank cheque to employers to make us work as long as they like without extra pay. Doing so just reduces our effective hourly rate, in the long term. TBH, I don't actually know how the law in Australia works regarding this, but it seems that employers can get away with not paying for overtime, if they want.

wtvanhest 10y ago

Businesses pay for the overtime, but not at 150% of the base rate.

jws 10y ago
This is more about which salaried employees are exempt, that is they don't get overtime. The theory is if you are pulling an oar then, you get overtime if you are hourly or yearly paid. If you are in charge of the ship then you don't have to get overtime. The problem was the law set a fixed annual income as the test for exemption and this got eroded away by inflation. The Obama rule was an attempt to restore the original intent of the law.
vidarh 10y ago
People covered by these exemptions are often not paid overtime at all, as the Fair Labor Standards Act does not require any overtime pay if you fall under the exemptions. These exemptions are meant to cover people in certain job roles where output is measured by work delivered, not hours spent, and where the person has independent responsibility for controlling their working hours to certain extent and were overtime as such is in theory voluntary. The threshold in question exists to make it harder to "define away" overtime pay obligations by pretending a role is more independent than it is, by connecting it to pay levels that makes it more likely that the role does in fact meet the intent of the law. The old/current levels makes a total mockery of that It's worth noting that this change also follows a change in 2004 that went the other way - redefining large groups of previously non-exempt lower level supervisors etc. as exempt, drastically cutting their rights to overtime pay.
- syshum 10y ago
  >>>>These exemptions are meant to cover people in certain job roles where output is measured by work delivered, not hours spent, and where the person has independent responsibility for controlling their working hours to certain extent and were overtime as such is in theory voluntary. While that is the stated reason, if you actually read the law it becomes clear that these exemptions are meant to cover people in certain job roles where the lobbyist paid congress the correct amount of money to get their preferred job roles exempted >>>>It's worth noting that this change also follows a change in 2004 that went the other way Yes and many (myself included) are wondering why the 2004 Rules in favor of business are with in the scope of DOL power, but the 2016 rules are not. Legally speaking if the 2016 rules are not valid than neither are the 2004 rules

refurb 10y ago

I don't know. I kind of like being exempt. If I get my work done early and I decide the take the afternoon off, my paycheck is the same. That said I'm lucky and my company freely comps additional paid time off when I start working more than 40 hours per week.

noobermin 10y ago
A minor point, but this rule was to help others who don't have your kind of work to have some protections.
jjoonathan 10y ago
People talk about "getting their work done" as if an equal amount of work were doled out every day to each worker and getting it done were a "you eat what you kill" result of being highly productive. Is this work-assignment principle common? I could see why a manager might distribute work this way, but I've never seen it actually happen -- it has always been "oh great, you finished early today, you'll have twice as much work tomorrow." The optimistic explanation is that I haven't found a good manager + workplace yet and I should keep looking. The pessimistic explanation is that "getting your work done" is a sign of success at the game of politics on one hand and masterful framing on the other, rather than a result of skillful software engineering. I'm right out of school, I've only had one job, so I don't have a very good sample to make up my own mind from. I'd appreciate hearing opinions on the matter.
- tbrownaw 10y ago
  I have a mostly infinite to-do list, so my work is never done. When I'm on a more well-defined project, I'll have a deadline and a set of things to do based on how fast I work and what we (me, the project manager, maybe the other developers on the project) think is reasonable. Several co-workers usually have a single project where work is lumpy. They can have a several-day to-do list one week, and be twiddling their thumbs waiting on other people the next week. I don't know anyone who gets a daily task list that isn't calibrated to their skill level.
- thinkmassive 10y ago

Gustomaximus 10y ago

I can understand it for higher earners. You are well compensated, typically better conditions and have employment options should the enviroment become toxic. For lower pays absolutely. If an employers agrees to X contracted hours/rate and then demands X+ hours because they know you cant say no, this is essentially theft. And to not pass this as rule essentially mandates it as OK. I hope this gets sorted. I suspect this judge and any future politicians/judges involved will come under a heap of scrutiny/pressure over this. It is simply too clearly unjust not to pass it. It would follow a person for the rest of their career and they would know it.

ianai 10y ago
Your first sentence is the justification for paying people less than 40k year and expecting 80 hours of work out of them. It doesn't hold up.
thinkmassive 10y ago
> I can understand it for higher earners What's the cutoff that determines when someone is classified as a higher earner?
- abduhl 10y ago
  4. The employee’s hourly rate of pay, or annual salary if paid on salaried basis, meets a minimum threshold amount set by California’s Division of Labor Statistics and Research (DLSR). For 2015, the DLSR set the amounts at $41.27 per hour or annual salary of not less than $85,981.40 for full time employment, and paid not less than $7,165.12 per month.
- cowl 10y ago
  There should be no cutoff. it's either paid for all (as it should be) or for none. How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more? The same way we say that people must have less stuff, including health care, college for their kids, etc., because they earn less.

rbanffy 10y ago

It only works when you are not an easily replaceable commodity. Unless your extra more expensive hours are something your employer can't readily find on the market, it'd trivial to acquire more hours from someone else for a cheaper rate.

mikekchar 10y ago

I don't think your stance is unreasonable. Far from it. However, as a worker, I prefer to get paid a lump sum per month as long as I am free to manage my time. I work extra when I want to work extra (which usually coincides with my employer needing some extra help). When I need time off, I take it. Normally I work more than I get paid for. Sometimes disaster strikes, or illness, or once in a lifetime opportunities. I want my employer to respect what I do and give me the opportunity to take the time that I need. I freely give them my time. They freely give me my space. I've worked in places where they track every second. You have a certain number of sick days and god help you if you need more. Punch in. Punch out. Emergencies happen and I'm off to my manager to sign off my overtime slip before I'll even think about stemming the flow of money resulting from downtime. I could go on for a long time, but you get the point. I don't like working for places that act that way. And while I understand the necessity to protect those that must work in such terrible conditions, I don't want to give up the way I like to live: where we both freely give each other what we need. One quick final comment. I don't leave this to chance. I tell my employers pretty clearly that this is how I like to live. If they can't accommodate me, it's usually a sign for me to start looking elsewhere to work. Not everybody has that luxury, but I think it is the ideal they should strive for rather than what people usually ask for (overtime pay).

ianai 10y ago
You can't optimize for the best interpretation and faithful adherence to the law. Just because some drivers could actually drive safely at night with their lights off doesn't make that an ok thing for everybody to do.

SketchySeaBeast 10y ago

In my country / province (Canada / Alberta), IT workers are considered professionals and as such we are overtime exempt while we in no way qualify as "high earners" compared to a lot of the surrounding vocations - is that the same where you are, or are we just getting a raw deal up here?

onchidiacea 10y ago
I'm a contractor, and prefer to remain so, after a brief stint as a permanent, ten years back, with an employer that just expected its staff to pull all-nighters and weekends with no notice, no overtime pay and no time in lieu. I prefer to work hourly rates, so that the moment I am asked to work overtime, I can just start charging for it. Unfortunately it's been a long time since I saw a contract here in Australia on anything other than a daily rate - so now, if I ever have to work overtime in a day, then I just make that up by working fewer hours the next. And then if asked to work weekends, then I charge per day for that, too. I've never accepted the argument that because "professionals" get paid more that we're handing a blank cheque to employers to make us work as long as they like without extra pay. Doing so just reduces our effective hourly rate, in the long term. TBH, I don't actually know how the law in Australia works regarding this, but it seems that employers can get away with not paying for overtime, if they want.