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Ah, gotcha. For some reason I always associated overtime with "unpaid". Probably because when I was a kid and had crappy jobs there would always be stuff that
by wlll 10y ago
Ah, gotcha. For some reason I always associated overtime with "unpaid". Probably because when I was a kid and had crappy jobs there would always be stuff that would need to be done at the start and end of every shift that outside my regular hours and therefore unpaid. I wasn't savvy enough to ask for pay, or to tell them where to stick it.
edit concrete example: Blockbuster Video. Shop closed at 11, the time I stopped getting paid. At that point I had to lock up and do accounts stuff, clean, and general admin (plugging the CC machine into the phone line so it could phone home and get lists of updated cards to watch for) etc. Would usually take about half an hour ISTR.
- veritas3241 10y agoGameStop is a company that had similar tactics. Had to close the registers, process and late trade-ins, and close/clean the store. Then they trusted me to take thousands of dollars to the bank and drop it in the slot. But all of it was unpaid.
- pfooti 10y agoThose practices are largely illegal. There's been a number of successful cases prosecuting wage theft.
- cavanasm 10y agoWas it GameStop, or the store manager? I'd bet money the GameStop corporate HR people would have fired the guy on the spot if they heard about something like that. My own retail experience (big box office supply store) was so metrics driven I can absolutely imagine a scenario where the store manager tries to illegally cut work hours to make his store's numbers look better.
- rhino369 10y agoYou were getting screwed. Most stores that close at say 9pm, still scheduling workers until 11pm to "Close" the store. The worst part is it was probably just some shitty manager making 35k a year looking for a good year end review or a tiny bonus. There is no way the corporate policy was unpaid overtime.
- cortesoft 10y agoYeah, what they were doing was flat out illegal. The only time you are allowed to work unpaid overtime is if your job is considered an 'exempt' position. There are a number of rules that have to be met for a job to be considered expempt, including a high enough salary, autonomy over your work, and a few other rules as well.
- sverige 10y agoWell, the article points out that the law specifically exempted this sort of work, except perhaps for the missing comma. I am a big fan of the Oxford comma, but in this instance saying that its absence means they are entitled to the overtime pay seems somewhat disingenuous, when the thing is taken in context. Truck driving (even those hourly jobs, as opposed to the much more common piece work jobs paid by the mile) is well-known for not paying overtime unless it is for a union shop and has been negotiated.
- cortesoft 10y agoI was talking about the person I was replying to, who was asked to work off the clock at blockbuster video. That is always illegal, regardless of whether you are elible for 1.5x overtime salary or not.
- LordKano 10y agoI was fired from a job once after I refused to work any time off of the books. They expected us to show up 10-15 minutes before the start of our shift to open and if we were on the later shift, they expected us to work 10-15 minutes after the end of the shift to close. I refused to work for free. I have never regretted losing that job.
- cortesoft 10y agoYou should have documented and reported to the labor board.
- kefka 10y agoYeah, and have the labor board give them a "stern talking to"? Not worth your time, nor return on time invested.
- Pyxl101 10y agoThe labor board would, among other things, force them to pay for the missing wages. These labor boards tend to be pretty vocal about defending the rights of employees. However, employees don't always know to invoke their help, and they don't have unlimited resources. A company not paying wages for time that employees have worked is a pretty open-and-shut case for them to handle.
- nommm-nommm 10y agoWhat? Labor boards don't give a "stern talking to," they investigate violations of the law, issue fines, and even force companies to pay back wages, with interest, and other forms of compensation directly to employees. I just did a Google and this first thing that came up "Walt Disney Co. has agreed to provide $3.8 million in back wages to thousands of hotel- and timeshare-resort workers after the U.S. Labor Department investigated violations of minimum wage, overtime and record keeping rules." I once reported a bank to the CPFB (not a labor board but similar) and it took 10 minutes to fill out an online form and they took care of investigating the issue for me. Ended up getting the $500 I was owed as well as an apology.
- rectang 10y agoThe name for this is wage theft. It's just as bad as taking money out of an employee's paycheck, and way more corrosive to society than petty theft.
- st3v3r 10y agoI fully believe that, much like persons registering as sex offenders are not allowed to go certain places, persons found to be involved in wage theft should be banned from running a business or being in any kind of managerial position whatsoever.
- Spooky23 10y agoMy mall employer did the same thing back in the day. I kept meticulous records, documented what was happening with my boss. I also kept the receipts that I got from the mall depository bank at 11PM. When I was ready to leave, I filed a Department of Labor complaint and got a few thousand bucks.