> If the company can afford to pay overtime, then there's no reason they can't afford to raise their workers hourly wages so they make the same money at 40 hour

> If the company can afford to pay overtime, then there's no reason they can't afford to raise their workers hourly wages so they make the same money at 40 hours or less that they would working 50/60 hours. The company can be a government entity that finances overtimes not with profit, but by collecting more taxes and/or issuing debt obligations. Think of NY police dept, which I'm sure is still rife with fraud to this day. They don't care about being able to "afford" to pay their force, since they have a money faucet and political influence. > As someone who visits our automtive and aerospace factories across the US frequently, the amount of guys I see standing around looking at smartphones is astounding You and everyone else who thinks like that needs to get out of this mentality that if you can't observe someone working actively for 8 hours out of an 8 hour day, that time is "waste". There are plenty of reasons to be on standby, some of which (e.g. blockers) are non-productive, and some that are. You're supposed to be taking breaks (not lunch breaks) every hour anyway, to stretch your limbs and maybe ask a coworker a couple of questions.