4 ms·

I can understand it for higher earners. You are well compensated, typically better conditions and have employment options should the enviroment become toxic. F

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.
  - edblarney 10y ago
    "How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?" It's not that they have 'less rights' - it's that the expectations of the job are different. You're a CEO, you're going to have to 'work a ton of hours' for your massive paycheque, it just goes with the job. You don't want it - stay VP or Director, or manager. CEO's, doctors etc. are not commodities. For hourly unskilled workers, 'labour' etc - there always have to be protections. Without them - we head back to 19th century oppression. I understand that's it's nuanced, and I agree that 'some salary' is a really, really crude way to define it ... but something needs to be there, or else you get 1/3 of Americans working 80 hours a week for de-facto $4/hour. Make no mistake - the 'free market wage' for 1/3 of Americans who's skills are commoditized, but who nevertheless to 'valuable work' is basically 1% above 'survival'. Well below poverty. You could argue the 'free market' decides how much value they actually provide, but I would argue that the rate is entirely a function of relative power disparity between the two parties (employee v. big corp) and nothing more. It's why 'minimum wage' laws exist in most places. 'Free markets' work when actors have agency, and some power ... when actors don't have some degree of power-parity, 99% of the surpluses go into the hands of one side of the equation.
  - oddlyaromatic 10y ago
    You got a good long answer, but more simply: An expected level of occasional 40+ hour weeks is often baked into to the salary at a higher level. When I switched to a salaried manager position, my new rate of pay was better than my old hourly, including the overtime I used to work. Now I know the check that will come every two weeks is the same, if I can do my work in under 40 hours nobody cares. It is much better for me to focus on my job and not worry about the exact number of hours I work.
    - hga 10y ago
meddlepal 10y ago
It's a federal judge. There isn't much career progression beyond that because they're appointed for life. So, no, it won't follow them. This is also why we have lifetime appointments so judge's make legally correct rulings rather than politically appealing ones.
- Gustomaximus 10y ago
  > There isn't much career progression beyond that because they're appointed for life. Progression: Supreme court judge. Chief justice. Maybe not many steps but huge ones. Also it would follow them as for both their remaining tenure and legacy, something they would be distinctly aware of and care about. > This is also why we have lifetime appointments so judge's make legally correct rulings rather than politically appealing one That's the theory but there is a reason each side wants to be in power during a supreme court position change. It is because political views shift their interpretation of the law.
hyperliner 10y ago
It is not the role of the judiciary to define what is just of unjust: they just need to make a ruling based on the law. There is really no difference if someone is paid $20k or $90k: you always must discount that rate if you are not an hourly employee. It is not theft: it is at-will employment and nobody is being forced to take it. Also, the ruling is only being postponed: --- “Due to the approaching effective date of the Final Rule, the Court’s ability to render a meaningful decision on the merits is in jeopardy,” he wrote. “A preliminary injunction preserves the status quo while the Court determines the department’s authority to make the Final Rule as well as the Final Rule’s validity. --- If the law was clear, then there would be no difference between whether the decision is done during the current or future administration. It seems that there is enough ambiguity that the course of action varies depending on who is in power, which appears to indicate to me that the overtime rule by Obama's administrations was on weak grounds regardless.
- llukas 10y ago
  "it is at-will employment and nobody is being forced to take it." Or you're free to starve, right?
  - matt_wulfeck 10y ago
    Yes you are free to starve if you choose so and keeping everyone fed is not the prerogative of a small business. That reality may sound harsh and unfair to you but it doesn't make it untrue. Either way my experience with crappy jobs suggest that it's hard to work more hours because of overtime pay rules. You have to simply work two jobs, which is what many people at places like McDonalds do to make ends meet. All of these rules have unintended side effects.
    - wwweston 10y ago
      > Yes you are free to starve if you choose so and keeping everyone fed is not the prerogative of a small business. "Keeping everyone fed" is an... interesting transmutation of the point you're responding to, which is more or less about whether businesses have any ethical obligations towards whatever employees they have (not "everyone") regardless of what market conditions will bear, and certainly stops well short of the idea that small businesses must generally solve hunger. If the job market is poor enough for a given employee that they don't have any other prospects, should that give an employer license to demand more of their time at the same pay rate? Or perhaps any smaller pay rate? Demand they do things which are health hazards? Coerce into doing illegal things? Demand sexual favors? > Either way my experience with crappy jobs suggest that it's hard to work more hours because of overtime pay rules. You have to simply work two jobs, which is what many people at places like McDonalds do to make ends meet. I don't think labor operations of a McDonald's have much to do with overtime, since the situation you're describing generally means the workers in question have trouble getting to full time. But yes, it probably does have something to do with employers trying to avoid bearing the cost of full-time employees, along with trying to optimize labor supply to indicated demand by buying smaller slices of worker time and pushing the cost of coordinating that worker's time on to the worker. > All of these rules have unintended side effects. Sure, and debating which ones are worthwhile and effective which ones aren't is great. As it turns out, not having many of these rules also has unintended side effects, which we've had a chance to see in action in the past.

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.
- edblarney 10y ago
  "How can you say that some people have less rights because they earn more?" It's not that they have 'less rights' - it's that the expectations of the job are different. You're a CEO, you're going to have to 'work a ton of hours' for your massive paycheque, it just goes with the job. You don't want it - stay VP or Director, or manager. CEO's, doctors etc. are not commodities. For hourly unskilled workers, 'labour' etc - there always have to be protections. Without them - we head back to 19th century oppression. I understand that's it's nuanced, and I agree that 'some salary' is a really, really crude way to define it ... but something needs to be there, or else you get 1/3 of Americans working 80 hours a week for de-facto $4/hour. Make no mistake - the 'free market wage' for 1/3 of Americans who's skills are commoditized, but who nevertheless to 'valuable work' is basically 1% above 'survival'. Well below poverty. You could argue the 'free market' decides how much value they actually provide, but I would argue that the rate is entirely a function of relative power disparity between the two parties (employee v. big corp) and nothing more. It's why 'minimum wage' laws exist in most places. 'Free markets' work when actors have agency, and some power ... when actors don't have some degree of power-parity, 99% of the surpluses go into the hands of one side of the equation.
- oddlyaromatic 10y ago
  You got a good long answer, but more simply: An expected level of occasional 40+ hour weeks is often baked into to the salary at a higher level. When I switched to a salaried manager position, my new rate of pay was better than my old hourly, including the overtime I used to work. Now I know the check that will come every two weeks is the same, if I can do my work in under 40 hours nobody cares. It is much better for me to focus on my job and not worry about the exact number of hours I work.
  - hga 10y ago

meddlepal 10y ago

It's a federal judge. There isn't much career progression beyond that because they're appointed for life. So, no, it won't follow them. This is also why we have lifetime appointments so judge's make legally correct rulings rather than politically appealing ones.

Gustomaximus 10y ago
> There isn't much career progression beyond that because they're appointed for life. Progression: Supreme court judge. Chief justice. Maybe not many steps but huge ones. Also it would follow them as for both their remaining tenure and legacy, something they would be distinctly aware of and care about. > This is also why we have lifetime appointments so judge's make legally correct rulings rather than politically appealing one That's the theory but there is a reason each side wants to be in power during a supreme court position change. It is because political views shift their interpretation of the law.

hyperliner 10y ago

It is not the role of the judiciary to define what is just of unjust: they just need to make a ruling based on the law. There is really no difference if someone is paid $20k or $90k: you always must discount that rate if you are not an hourly employee. It is not theft: it is at-will employment and nobody is being forced to take it. Also, the ruling is only being postponed: --- “Due to the approaching effective date of the Final Rule, the Court’s ability to render a meaningful decision on the merits is in jeopardy,” he wrote. “A preliminary injunction preserves the status quo while the Court determines the department’s authority to make the Final Rule as well as the Final Rule’s validity. --- If the law was clear, then there would be no difference between whether the decision is done during the current or future administration. It seems that there is enough ambiguity that the course of action varies depending on who is in power, which appears to indicate to me that the overtime rule by Obama's administrations was on weak grounds regardless.

llukas 10y ago
"it is at-will employment and nobody is being forced to take it." Or you're free to starve, right?
- matt_wulfeck 10y ago
  Yes you are free to starve if you choose so and keeping everyone fed is not the prerogative of a small business. That reality may sound harsh and unfair to you but it doesn't make it untrue. Either way my experience with crappy jobs suggest that it's hard to work more hours because of overtime pay rules. You have to simply work two jobs, which is what many people at places like McDonalds do to make ends meet. All of these rules have unintended side effects.
  - wwweston 10y ago
    > Yes you are free to starve if you choose so and keeping everyone fed is not the prerogative of a small business. "Keeping everyone fed" is an... interesting transmutation of the point you're responding to, which is more or less about whether businesses have any ethical obligations towards whatever employees they have (not "everyone") regardless of what market conditions will bear, and certainly stops well short of the idea that small businesses must generally solve hunger. If the job market is poor enough for a given employee that they don't have any other prospects, should that give an employer license to demand more of their time at the same pay rate? Or perhaps any smaller pay rate? Demand they do things which are health hazards? Coerce into doing illegal things? Demand sexual favors? > Either way my experience with crappy jobs suggest that it's hard to work more hours because of overtime pay rules. You have to simply work two jobs, which is what many people at places like McDonalds do to make ends meet. I don't think labor operations of a McDonald's have much to do with overtime, since the situation you're describing generally means the workers in question have trouble getting to full time. But yes, it probably does have something to do with employers trying to avoid bearing the cost of full-time employees, along with trying to optimize labor supply to indicated demand by buying smaller slices of worker time and pushing the cost of coordinating that worker's time on to the worker. > All of these rules have unintended side effects. Sure, and debating which ones are worthwhile and effective which ones aren't is great. As it turns out, not having many of these rules also has unintended side effects, which we've had a chance to see in action in the past.