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Say you would rather work 60hr a week at one job at the same pay rate instead of working 40hr at one job and 20hr at another. You like your main job and the ext

Say you would rather work 60hr a week at one job at the same pay rate instead of working 40hr at one job and 20hr at another. You like your main job and the extra commute time to another job is a pain. Your main employer likes your work and is willing to pay you your standard wage for 60hr a week. This rate is even higher than your second job. This is not allowed by the US government. You can't legally voluntarily give up an hourly overtime wage increase. Unless, of course, you are in a salaried position. Then you can work as many hours a week as your employer and you agree on. A higher standard of living for everyone is a great idea. How to do that over a long period of time in a society is a hard problem. I think it probably consists of letting people decided for themselves how to live their lives and have as little central planning, state control, and corporations as possible, but who knows?

cableshaft 8y ago
The problem is, that without the financial disincentive, that employer has no reason NOT to have mandatory overtime, all the time, and try to get by on half the work force working mandatory 80 hour weeks and save the costs of benefits and PTO and whatever that the two employees at 40 hour weeks would cost. It wouldn't happen right away, but would creep up, and people would feel they'd have no choice because they need a job and all other companies by that point would be doing the same thing anyway. Just look at the video game industry, where the supply for jobs is so high and people are willing to put up with so much shit to live their dream that it has a notorious 'crunch time' of 60-80+ hour weeks, sometimes lasting for years on end, and just expected of you. It's gotten so bad in that industry there are (supposedly) legitimate efforts to unionize to protect the workers. You don't see that in any other software development field. That's basically what you're advocating for. The overtime needs to be there as a check against the corporation's own greed and psychopathic indifference towards its employees' well being. The financial disincentive is the only thing that stops the employer from allowing these abuses in most cases.

cableshaft 8y ago

The problem is, that without the financial disincentive, that employer has no reason NOT to have mandatory overtime, all the time, and try to get by on half the work force working mandatory 80 hour weeks and save the costs of benefits and PTO and whatever that the two employees at 40 hour weeks would cost. It wouldn't happen right away, but would creep up, and people would feel they'd have no choice because they need a job and all other companies by that point would be doing the same thing anyway. Just look at the video game industry, where the supply for jobs is so high and people are willing to put up with so much shit to live their dream that it has a notorious 'crunch time' of 60-80+ hour weeks, sometimes lasting for years on end, and just expected of you. It's gotten so bad in that industry there are (supposedly) legitimate efforts to unionize to protect the workers. You don't see that in any other software development field. That's basically what you're advocating for. The overtime needs to be there as a check against the corporation's own greed and psychopathic indifference towards its employees' well being. The financial disincentive is the only thing that stops the employer from allowing these abuses in most cases.