13 ms·

LinkedIn to pay nearly $6M in unpaid overtime wages and damages to 359 employees

316 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

shunya 12y ago
Who are these employees? I don't know any developers who get paid overtime. Even at shitty companies with shitty pay I have worked at least 55 hrs/week and during launches over 70 hrs/week.
Smudge 12y ago
> This company has shown a great deal of integrity by fully cooperating with investigators and stepping up to the plate without hesitation to help make workers whole ... We are particularly pleased that LinkedIn also has committed to take positive and practical steps towards securing future compliance. I'm surprised they're getting praised so much for complying. It's not like they had a choice. Instead of commending them on their newfound diligence, we should be asking why and how these overtime violations occurred in the first place. Was it a systemic problem with lower management incentives? How far up did knowledge of the violations extend? Why wasn't it detected until now, and what can we do to prevent it from happening elsewhere, not just within LinkedIn?
- tinco 12y ago
  This looks to me like a cultural problem, not only in the IT sector but in all sectors where high performance is a measurably inductor to profit. I hope this case sets a precedent and will lead to employees whistle-blowing organisations where overtime goes untracked and unpaid. It's ridiculous that employees would work their guts out for companies that they don't hold significant shares in without receiving even normal hourly pay.
  - Shivetya 12y ago
    Uh, it was because LinkedIn was guilty of overtime of non exempt employees. I find that in most shops I have seen nearly everyone is exempt. I record hours per day for my work, I am fully exempt. Many in the tech industry will voluntarily put in excessive hours and this causes pressure on others to do similar, unless within a protected class of workers.
    - maerF0x0 12y ago
      To me it begs the question why there is an exempt class? To me its like saying some people are exempt from the realities that inform the 40 hr work week. Things like productivity research, health and wellness research etc.
      - rmrfrmrf 12y ago
        Not every job is based around clocking in and clocking out, though, and there are a lot of complications for things like traveling, lunch meetings, and business trips. There are also strict laws about overtime pay and the max time that a person is allowed to work before being required a break. There's also the issue of employees recording their own times worked (it's a compliance nightmare that can lead to lots of payment adjustments, fines, and/or lawsuits).
        maerF0x0 12y ago
        Of course not all jobs are based around clocking in and clocking out production line style. However, that knowledge informs when the hours are performed, not the quantity of hours. If your job duties are flexible and can be performed at anytime, why not pay "overtime" when someone has to work 60 hrs a week to cover their duties (or not get "let go" due to appearances) ? Dont get me wrong, I know ahead of time that I will be required to work more than 40 hrs a week and thus price it into my salary, making the overall points a little moot in practice. But, there is something odd, a smell of sorts, about saying "You get your salary for 40 hrs a week, and the other 20 are not paid" ... Say I would only work for $30 an hour, and I know the employer is going to require 60 hrs a week of work, then I'd only settle for a salary that is 3000*30 = $90k a year. If the employer has a standard that says "I will pay you for overtime" then I can accept a salary of 60k a year and know that I will make $30k in overtime pay. The real hard part comes when the work is presumed the later and is the former in reality. One takes a wage on the presumption of 40 hrs a week and ends up working 60.. decreasing their compensation for time by 33% .
  - kmfrk 12y ago
    There's a fundamental misconception about things like labour violations and general mistreatment: workplaces only do it knowingly. Corporations liked LinkedIn ought know better, but smaller companies don't get the 101 on things like this. This is one of many opportunities for companies like YC to lay out some of these 101s and work to make them industry standards.
- conistonwater 12y ago
  There is a cynical and pessimistic interpretation (just an idle thought; I know nothing at all): the investigators are stretched thin, so instead of investigating anything themselves, they instead ask LinkedIn to investigate itself. LinkedIn slaps itself a little bit, writes a report, agrees to a settlement, maybe manages to soften some language or push its own interpretation of events, "we did this, this and this, but we never ever did any of that". The investigators never had enough resources to do an investigation on their own, they check that LinkedIn's report is roughly as stern as their own report would have been based on evidence and interpretations presented in LinkedIn's report and what investigators already knew, agree to a settlement. The outcome is that LinkedIn is "punished" and investigators look like they are doing their job.
  - mreiland 12y ago
    does it really matter when they did the thing in the first place? It's like congratulating a car thief for being an upstanding citizen because they admitted to the thievery and promised never to do it again after paying a fine.
    - Flow 12y ago
      If that actually worked, it would be ideal :)
    - biot 12y ago
      Since we're going with car analogies, it's more like a company leases a fleet of vehicles where each vehicle can be driven up to 20,000 km/year for the price negotiated. However, the cars don't have odometers to keep track of distance traveled. The dealership who leased the cars thinks that they've been driven further and complains to the Department of Transport. The DoT investigates and adds up third-party records of everywhere the cars have been and finds out that some vehicles were routinely driven more than 20,000 km in the prior year. The company agrees to pay the agreed-upon rate for any overage distance per vehicle plus a proportional fine and also agrees to add an odometer to the vehicles to track actual mileage in the future.
      - 12y ago
- larrys 12y ago
  As I've put in my other comment elsewhere I got hit with a DOL action many years ago. It definitely wasn't willful but we were running afoul of some hidden rule that even some lawyers had never heard of and didn't know about. One employee complained, they investigated and audited, and we got fined and had to pay back wages. I'm not commenting on why or what linkedin did only providing perspective that it can happen for less nefarious reasons.
  - Smudge 12y ago
    Interesting perspective. It's unfortunate that you can get bit even when trying to play fair. Even if LinkedIn's mistake was similarly unwitting, we should try to learn something from it. Maybe the rules have become too complex, or maybe more guidance is needed to help employers stay within the lines.
  - spoondan 12y ago
    I'm curious about your story. Did the employee not complain to management prior to involving DOL? If the employee did, what happened that the employee's complaint was not accurately assessed and resolved? And if the employee did not, do you have an idea of why? I mean these as honest questions. The law is complicated, and it's easy to accidentally run afoul of some provision somewhere while acting in good faith. Outside of retribution, it's preferable to resolve these situations amicably. It's faster for the employee and less risky for the business. So when I hear these kinds of stories, I like to identify where the breakdown happened. Was it a bad hire? A broken reporting process? A failure of the lawyers to assess the claim?
    - larrys 12y ago
      "Did the employee not complain to management prior to involving DOL?" Definitely not. Was a small company so I would have known. "And if the employee did not, do you have an idea of why?" I think they were probably upset about something else. One interesting thing was the DOL office was a mere 2 blocks from our office. Perhaps that played into it. (More detail in my other reply)
allsystemsgo 12y ago
I don't get it. So if I'm working overtime for my employer, a lot, I'm entitled to money? I get that my work after hours is essentially "free" labor. But I wasn't aware that there are actually laws that say salaried employees are entitled to more compensation when working after hours.
- bicx 12y ago
  There are exempt salaried workers and nonexempt salaried workers. The exemption refers to overtime pay. The LinkedIn employees were nonexempt (so they were owed payment for overtime).
- romanovcode 12y ago
  Sorry to say but if you're working overtime for absolutely free you're not very smart person.
  - EpicEng 12y ago
    Right, because it's always that easy to just say "F U boss, I'm outa here!" Oh, wait, I have to feed my kid and pay the rent this month... oops.
    - NietTim 12y ago
      Don't know about you, but if I have to work overtime it is because of bad planning.
    - romanovcode 12y ago
      I don't know about you but for me - yes, it's that easy. I don't remember ever working overtime without payment. Granted I am not afraid to get fired so there is no fear involved. However I never got fired in my life.
      - EpicEng 12y ago
        Well, you may be shocked to hear this, but not everyone is in the exact same situation as you.
revelation 12y ago
prohibiting off-the-clock work to all nonexempt employees I presume this doesn't include computer professionals, which for some reason are exempt [1], as are sales staff on commission or, you know, farmworkers. Can someone explain why this insanity continues? The original source for that exemption seems to be [2], an act from 1990 To eliminate "substantial documentary evidence" requirement for minimum wage determination for American Samoa which also includes this provision. All I can figure from the history of this bill that can be found online is that in 1990 Idaho, senator James McClure decided to fuck over tech workers and sneaked that into a bill on American samoa (snooze). 25 years later and here we are not getting paid. [1]: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/screen75.asp http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/screen75.asp [2]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-104/pdf/STATUTE-104-Pg2871.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-104/pdf/STATUTE-104-Pg2...
- gnu8 12y ago
  It persists partially because tech industry workers are especially susceptible to class confusion. That is, the startup culture stock option lottery deludes them into thinking they are a part of the ownership class rather than the working class. Thus, they allow basically all of the fruits of their labor to be stolen from them. That, and powerful lobbyists keep anything from changing.
  - Iftheshoefits 12y ago
    Well put. Steinbeck's "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" quote also comes to mind here. It has far more broad application than merely as a suggested explanation for the failure of socialism to take root in America. I find it is a very useful shorthand to describe a great many interactions between labor and ownership in this country, whatever the industry. The tech industry is especially bad in that regard. It's not just the startup culture; it's more general than that. Many programmers have serious ego issues (as in, big egos and unjustifiable arrogance) and, in a somewhat amusing and baffling way, believe very strongly in the notion that the software industry is a meritocracy.
    - 12y ago
larrys 12y ago
I had this happen to me at a company that I owned in the past. I got the DOL to chop the total amount due in half and then got them to allow us to pay it out over 4 or 5 years. (All without a lawyer btw...) Edit: Reason for downvotes?
- ics 12y ago
  Everyone reading this thread would probably appreciate it if you provided more information. Your brevity almost sounds like gloating as it says nothing in regards to the well-being of your employees except that the money that you managed to owe them less than half of what the DOL originally figured. In your other comment, you mentioned "some hidden rule"– what rule? How did you go about resolving it? I expect you could have some extra insight given that you did not involve a lawyer on your behalf. Size of the company, timeframe which this took place, etc. would all probably be helpful. We want to know what the less nefarious reasons you mentioned above actually are.
  - larrys 12y ago
    "Your brevity almost sounds like gloating" Well yes I was bragging. I was pretty proud that I got it cut in half after an attorney told me to just pay the full amount that (he was a labor lawyer) he didn't think they would budge. So yes I was proud that I did that but more importantly wanted to point out that it was possible, at least then in that particular office. In business sometimes just knowing something is possible can enable you to try. "except that the money that you managed to owe them less than half of what the DOL originally figured" Well as a business person of course I'm going to try and minimize the dollars owed. But further to the employees it was essentially found money they didn't have an issue (other than the one employee who did apparently) in the first place. The company was about 20 employees. This happened over the course of a few years. It involved the fact (from memory) that you didn't have to give employees (of this type) any breaks but if you did give them breaks they had to be 15 or 20 minutes (don't remember). So here is the scenario (for this type of employee). You work and you don't get any breaks. - Ok says the DOL You work and you get, say, 20 minutes break. - Ok says the DOL. You work and you get, say, 15 minutes break. - No says the DOL must be 20 minutes you owe them pay for the 15 minutes they weren't working. Only thing I don't remember is if it was 15 minutes needed or 20 minutes. The point is we were off by 5 minutes so we owed back pay for that. So once again breaks weren't required but if you give them they have to be of a certain length. And it had nothing to do with a job description that generally referenced breaks either. No mention was made of breaks when hiring. And they didn't have to take breaks either.
codezero 12y ago
I'm really curious if this was isolated to a particular department or team, or type of worker.
pudo 12y ago
This is one of these HN discussion moments when you, our American friends, just have imagine all of Europe sitting with an open mouth, enjoying the radical feeling of labour law disaster tourism.
- dror 12y ago
  Well, you know about our "free" lunches and amazing hardware "given" by the company, fancy offices, etc. Now you know where the money comes from :-). Seriously though, there are companies all over the place, from startups where everyone is expected to work 80 hours a week to established companies where people have kids and most employees work 40-45 hours a week with the occasional 50-60 during a release. Some companies leverage it (the term we use her is "work-life balance"). http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eng?query=work+life+balance http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eng?query=work+life+balan...
- mynewwork 12y ago
  Funny, "labor law disaster tourism" could also explain how an American feels visiting Spain, France or Italy right now. No system is perfect, but let's not pretend labor laws in the EU don't come with massive downsides (unemployment, difficulty to start or grow a business, purchasing power of discretionary income). Here's a simple rule of thumb for understanding the situation in the US: if you have to be at work at a specific time and get scheduled breaks, you probably get paid overtime. If you're judged on your output and nobody notices when you go get coffee, eat lunch or start in the morning, you probably get paid a consistent salary regardless of exact hours you were in the office.
  - crdoconnor 12y ago
    >No system is perfect, but let's not pretend labor laws in the EU don't come with massive downsides (unemployment, difficulty to start or grow a business, purchasing power of discretionary income). Unemployment wasn't caused by labor laws, it was caused by intentionally destructive pan-EU fiscal policy. Difficulty to start or grow a business - compared to silicon valley, maybe. Fewer investors / smaller markets. Not really a labor law thing. Purchasing power of discretionary income - caused by the high dollar, which is in turn caused by US military hegemony. Not labor laws.
crdblb 12y ago
The reach of these kinds of lawsuits (see also the Yahoo one from a few years ago) goes far beyond the affected employees. For example, I'm a dev but I've never worked in ops or any other role where I was considered "on call", so I have never had the opportunity for being in the plaintiff class of any of these kinds of suits. But just reading about them makes me reconsider a lot of things. Despite not being "on call", I have still put in tons of unpaid overtime over the years, which is unfortunately considered typical for a software dev these days. Reading about lawsuits like this has essentially motivated me to stop doing that. If others are getting paid for overtime (even if it's through lawsuits) but I'm not, then I won't put in those extra hours. It's changed my life for the better, despite not being directly affected.
morgante 12y ago
Does anyone have insight into which LinkedIn employees this actually applies to? I'd think that the majority of LinkedIn employees are computer professionals or sales people, to whom overtime laws don't apply. Also, this thread has a lot of consternation/discussion about overtime payment for software developers. If you consider our bargaining power, overtime protection is completely unnecessary. Just find a new job where people will either pay you a commiserate salary with your work hours, or find one which doesn't expect ludicrous hours. Despite the stereotypes, it's perfectly possible to find great technology jobs where you work 40-45 hours a week.
rainhacker 12y ago
How come Investment Banks are never fined for this ? People have died working overtime in the past: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/bank-of-america-staff-quizzed-as-coroner-probes-intern-s-death.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/bank-of-america-sta...
aneeskA 12y ago
I live in INDIA. I read the verdict and think - I could have been a millionaire if this happened here :D
djvv 12y ago
I wonder how did the Linkedin employees organized in order to file the lawsuit? I imagine that, if the wrong person heard about the plan, the organizers would be fired right away.

316 points by e15ctr0n 12y ago

Who are these employees? I don't know any developers who get paid overtime. Even at shitty companies with shitty pay I have worked at least 55 hrs/week and during launches over 70 hrs/week.

Smudge 12y ago

> This company has shown a great deal of integrity by fully cooperating with investigators and stepping up to the plate without hesitation to help make workers whole ... We are particularly pleased that LinkedIn also has committed to take positive and practical steps towards securing future compliance. I'm surprised they're getting praised so much for complying. It's not like they had a choice. Instead of commending them on their newfound diligence, we should be asking why and how these overtime violations occurred in the first place. Was it a systemic problem with lower management incentives? How far up did knowledge of the violations extend? Why wasn't it detected until now, and what can we do to prevent it from happening elsewhere, not just within LinkedIn?

tinco 12y ago
This looks to me like a cultural problem, not only in the IT sector but in all sectors where high performance is a measurably inductor to profit. I hope this case sets a precedent and will lead to employees whistle-blowing organisations where overtime goes untracked and unpaid. It's ridiculous that employees would work their guts out for companies that they don't hold significant shares in without receiving even normal hourly pay.
- Shivetya 12y ago
  Uh, it was because LinkedIn was guilty of overtime of non exempt employees. I find that in most shops I have seen nearly everyone is exempt. I record hours per day for my work, I am fully exempt. Many in the tech industry will voluntarily put in excessive hours and this causes pressure on others to do similar, unless within a protected class of workers.
  - maerF0x0 12y ago
    To me it begs the question why there is an exempt class? To me its like saying some people are exempt from the realities that inform the 40 hr work week. Things like productivity research, health and wellness research etc.
    - rmrfrmrf 12y ago
      Not every job is based around clocking in and clocking out, though, and there are a lot of complications for things like traveling, lunch meetings, and business trips. There are also strict laws about overtime pay and the max time that a person is allowed to work before being required a break. There's also the issue of employees recording their own times worked (it's a compliance nightmare that can lead to lots of payment adjustments, fines, and/or lawsuits).
      - maerF0x0 12y ago
        Of course not all jobs are based around clocking in and clocking out production line style. However, that knowledge informs when the hours are performed, not the quantity of hours. If your job duties are flexible and can be performed at anytime, why not pay "overtime" when someone has to work 60 hrs a week to cover their duties (or not get "let go" due to appearances) ? Dont get me wrong, I know ahead of time that I will be required to work more than 40 hrs a week and thus price it into my salary, making the overall points a little moot in practice. But, there is something odd, a smell of sorts, about saying "You get your salary for 40 hrs a week, and the other 20 are not paid" ... Say I would only work for $30 an hour, and I know the employer is going to require 60 hrs a week of work, then I'd only settle for a salary that is 3000*30 = $90k a year. If the employer has a standard that says "I will pay you for overtime" then I can accept a salary of 60k a year and know that I will make $30k in overtime pay. The real hard part comes when the work is presumed the later and is the former in reality. One takes a wage on the presumption of 40 hrs a week and ends up working 60.. decreasing their compensation for time by 33% .
- kmfrk 12y ago
  There's a fundamental misconception about things like labour violations and general mistreatment: workplaces only do it knowingly. Corporations liked LinkedIn ought know better, but smaller companies don't get the 101 on things like this. This is one of many opportunities for companies like YC to lay out some of these 101s and work to make them industry standards.
conistonwater 12y ago
There is a cynical and pessimistic interpretation (just an idle thought; I know nothing at all): the investigators are stretched thin, so instead of investigating anything themselves, they instead ask LinkedIn to investigate itself. LinkedIn slaps itself a little bit, writes a report, agrees to a settlement, maybe manages to soften some language or push its own interpretation of events, "we did this, this and this, but we never ever did any of that". The investigators never had enough resources to do an investigation on their own, they check that LinkedIn's report is roughly as stern as their own report would have been based on evidence and interpretations presented in LinkedIn's report and what investigators already knew, agree to a settlement. The outcome is that LinkedIn is "punished" and investigators look like they are doing their job.
- mreiland 12y ago
  does it really matter when they did the thing in the first place? It's like congratulating a car thief for being an upstanding citizen because they admitted to the thievery and promised never to do it again after paying a fine.
  - Flow 12y ago
    If that actually worked, it would be ideal :)
  - biot 12y ago
    Since we're going with car analogies, it's more like a company leases a fleet of vehicles where each vehicle can be driven up to 20,000 km/year for the price negotiated. However, the cars don't have odometers to keep track of distance traveled. The dealership who leased the cars thinks that they've been driven further and complains to the Department of Transport. The DoT investigates and adds up third-party records of everywhere the cars have been and finds out that some vehicles were routinely driven more than 20,000 km in the prior year. The company agrees to pay the agreed-upon rate for any overage distance per vehicle plus a proportional fine and also agrees to add an odometer to the vehicles to track actual mileage in the future.
    - 12y ago
larrys 12y ago
As I've put in my other comment elsewhere I got hit with a DOL action many years ago. It definitely wasn't willful but we were running afoul of some hidden rule that even some lawyers had never heard of and didn't know about. One employee complained, they investigated and audited, and we got fined and had to pay back wages. I'm not commenting on why or what linkedin did only providing perspective that it can happen for less nefarious reasons.
- Smudge 12y ago
  Interesting perspective. It's unfortunate that you can get bit even when trying to play fair. Even if LinkedIn's mistake was similarly unwitting, we should try to learn something from it. Maybe the rules have become too complex, or maybe more guidance is needed to help employers stay within the lines.
- spoondan 12y ago
  I'm curious about your story. Did the employee not complain to management prior to involving DOL? If the employee did, what happened that the employee's complaint was not accurately assessed and resolved? And if the employee did not, do you have an idea of why? I mean these as honest questions. The law is complicated, and it's easy to accidentally run afoul of some provision somewhere while acting in good faith. Outside of retribution, it's preferable to resolve these situations amicably. It's faster for the employee and less risky for the business. So when I hear these kinds of stories, I like to identify where the breakdown happened. Was it a bad hire? A broken reporting process? A failure of the lawyers to assess the claim?
  - larrys 12y ago
    "Did the employee not complain to management prior to involving DOL?" Definitely not. Was a small company so I would have known. "And if the employee did not, do you have an idea of why?" I think they were probably upset about something else. One interesting thing was the DOL office was a mere 2 blocks from our office. Perhaps that played into it. (More detail in my other reply)

allsystemsgo 12y ago

I don't get it. So if I'm working overtime for my employer, a lot, I'm entitled to money? I get that my work after hours is essentially "free" labor. But I wasn't aware that there are actually laws that say salaried employees are entitled to more compensation when working after hours.

bicx 12y ago
There are exempt salaried workers and nonexempt salaried workers. The exemption refers to overtime pay. The LinkedIn employees were nonexempt (so they were owed payment for overtime).
romanovcode 12y ago
Sorry to say but if you're working overtime for absolutely free you're not very smart person.
- EpicEng 12y ago
  Right, because it's always that easy to just say "F U boss, I'm outa here!" Oh, wait, I have to feed my kid and pay the rent this month... oops.
  - NietTim 12y ago
    Don't know about you, but if I have to work overtime it is because of bad planning.
  - romanovcode 12y ago
    I don't know about you but for me - yes, it's that easy. I don't remember ever working overtime without payment. Granted I am not afraid to get fired so there is no fear involved. However I never got fired in my life.
    - EpicEng 12y ago
      Well, you may be shocked to hear this, but not everyone is in the exact same situation as you.

revelation 12y ago

prohibiting off-the-clock work to all nonexempt employees I presume this doesn't include computer professionals, which for some reason are exempt [1], as are sales staff on commission or, you know, farmworkers. Can someone explain why this insanity continues? The original source for that exemption seems to be [2], an act from 1990 To eliminate "substantial documentary evidence" requirement for minimum wage determination for American Samoa which also includes this provision. All I can figure from the history of this bill that can be found online is that in 1990 Idaho, senator James McClure decided to fuck over tech workers and sneaked that into a bill on American samoa (snooze). 25 years later and here we are not getting paid. [1]: http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/screen75.asp http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/screen75.asp [2]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-104/pdf/STATUTE-104-Pg2871.pdf http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/STATUTE-104/pdf/STATUTE-104-Pg2...

gnu8 12y ago
It persists partially because tech industry workers are especially susceptible to class confusion. That is, the startup culture stock option lottery deludes them into thinking they are a part of the ownership class rather than the working class. Thus, they allow basically all of the fruits of their labor to be stolen from them. That, and powerful lobbyists keep anything from changing.
- Iftheshoefits 12y ago
  Well put. Steinbeck's "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" quote also comes to mind here. It has far more broad application than merely as a suggested explanation for the failure of socialism to take root in America. I find it is a very useful shorthand to describe a great many interactions between labor and ownership in this country, whatever the industry. The tech industry is especially bad in that regard. It's not just the startup culture; it's more general than that. Many programmers have serious ego issues (as in, big egos and unjustifiable arrogance) and, in a somewhat amusing and baffling way, believe very strongly in the notion that the software industry is a meritocracy.
  - 12y ago

larrys 12y ago

I had this happen to me at a company that I owned in the past. I got the DOL to chop the total amount due in half and then got them to allow us to pay it out over 4 or 5 years. (All without a lawyer btw...) Edit: Reason for downvotes?

ics 12y ago
Everyone reading this thread would probably appreciate it if you provided more information. Your brevity almost sounds like gloating as it says nothing in regards to the well-being of your employees except that the money that you managed to owe them less than half of what the DOL originally figured. In your other comment, you mentioned "some hidden rule"– what rule? How did you go about resolving it? I expect you could have some extra insight given that you did not involve a lawyer on your behalf. Size of the company, timeframe which this took place, etc. would all probably be helpful. We want to know what the less nefarious reasons you mentioned above actually are.
- larrys 12y ago
  "Your brevity almost sounds like gloating" Well yes I was bragging. I was pretty proud that I got it cut in half after an attorney told me to just pay the full amount that (he was a labor lawyer) he didn't think they would budge. So yes I was proud that I did that but more importantly wanted to point out that it was possible, at least then in that particular office. In business sometimes just knowing something is possible can enable you to try. "except that the money that you managed to owe them less than half of what the DOL originally figured" Well as a business person of course I'm going to try and minimize the dollars owed. But further to the employees it was essentially found money they didn't have an issue (other than the one employee who did apparently) in the first place. The company was about 20 employees. This happened over the course of a few years. It involved the fact (from memory) that you didn't have to give employees (of this type) any breaks but if you did give them breaks they had to be 15 or 20 minutes (don't remember). So here is the scenario (for this type of employee). You work and you don't get any breaks. - Ok says the DOL You work and you get, say, 20 minutes break. - Ok says the DOL. You work and you get, say, 15 minutes break. - No says the DOL must be 20 minutes you owe them pay for the 15 minutes they weren't working. Only thing I don't remember is if it was 15 minutes needed or 20 minutes. The point is we were off by 5 minutes so we owed back pay for that. So once again breaks weren't required but if you give them they have to be of a certain length. And it had nothing to do with a job description that generally referenced breaks either. No mention was made of breaks when hiring. And they didn't have to take breaks either.

codezero 12y ago

I'm really curious if this was isolated to a particular department or team, or type of worker.

pudo 12y ago

This is one of these HN discussion moments when you, our American friends, just have imagine all of Europe sitting with an open mouth, enjoying the radical feeling of labour law disaster tourism.

dror 12y ago
Well, you know about our "free" lunches and amazing hardware "given" by the company, fancy offices, etc. Now you know where the money comes from :-). Seriously though, there are companies all over the place, from startups where everyone is expected to work 80 hours a week to established companies where people have kids and most employees work 40-45 hours a week with the occasional 50-60 during a release. Some companies leverage it (the term we use her is "work-life balance"). http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eng?query=work+life+balance http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eng?query=work+life+balan...
mynewwork 12y ago
Funny, "labor law disaster tourism" could also explain how an American feels visiting Spain, France or Italy right now. No system is perfect, but let's not pretend labor laws in the EU don't come with massive downsides (unemployment, difficulty to start or grow a business, purchasing power of discretionary income). Here's a simple rule of thumb for understanding the situation in the US: if you have to be at work at a specific time and get scheduled breaks, you probably get paid overtime. If you're judged on your output and nobody notices when you go get coffee, eat lunch or start in the morning, you probably get paid a consistent salary regardless of exact hours you were in the office.
- crdoconnor 12y ago
  >No system is perfect, but let's not pretend labor laws in the EU don't come with massive downsides (unemployment, difficulty to start or grow a business, purchasing power of discretionary income). Unemployment wasn't caused by labor laws, it was caused by intentionally destructive pan-EU fiscal policy. Difficulty to start or grow a business - compared to silicon valley, maybe. Fewer investors / smaller markets. Not really a labor law thing. Purchasing power of discretionary income - caused by the high dollar, which is in turn caused by US military hegemony. Not labor laws.

crdblb 12y ago

The reach of these kinds of lawsuits (see also the Yahoo one from a few years ago) goes far beyond the affected employees. For example, I'm a dev but I've never worked in ops or any other role where I was considered "on call", so I have never had the opportunity for being in the plaintiff class of any of these kinds of suits. But just reading about them makes me reconsider a lot of things. Despite not being "on call", I have still put in tons of unpaid overtime over the years, which is unfortunately considered typical for a software dev these days. Reading about lawsuits like this has essentially motivated me to stop doing that. If others are getting paid for overtime (even if it's through lawsuits) but I'm not, then I won't put in those extra hours. It's changed my life for the better, despite not being directly affected.

morgante 12y ago

Does anyone have insight into which LinkedIn employees this actually applies to? I'd think that the majority of LinkedIn employees are computer professionals or sales people, to whom overtime laws don't apply. Also, this thread has a lot of consternation/discussion about overtime payment for software developers. If you consider our bargaining power, overtime protection is completely unnecessary. Just find a new job where people will either pay you a commiserate salary with your work hours, or find one which doesn't expect ludicrous hours. Despite the stereotypes, it's perfectly possible to find great technology jobs where you work 40-45 hours a week.

rainhacker 12y ago

How come Investment Banks are never fined for this ? People have died working overtime in the past: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/bank-of-america-staff-quizzed-as-coroner-probes-intern-s-death.html http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-11-22/bank-of-america-sta...

aneeskA 12y ago

I live in INDIA. I read the verdict and think - I could have been a millionaire if this happened here :D

djvv 12y ago

I wonder how did the Linkedin employees organized in order to file the lawsuit? I imagine that, if the wrong person heard about the plan, the organizers would be fired right away.