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Fran Sussner Rodgers writes in the NYT that a little-noticed change in the American workplace is about to occur when later this month the Department of Labor is expected to announce an adjustment to the Fair Labor Standards Act raising the salary threshold for overtime from $23,660 per year to at least double that theshold. In 1975, the last year the threshold was significantly raised, 60 percent of salaried workers fell within the requirement for overtime pay while today only 8 percent do, so the new requirement should be a welcome change for millions of American workers.
But the change also speaks to an issue that affects everyone, whether eligible for overtime or not - the clash between the finite amount of time employees actually have versus the desire of employers to treat time as an inexhaustible resource. Employees in the United States currently work more hours than workers in any of the world's 10 largest economies except Russia. When everything over 40 hours is free to the employer, the temptation to demand more is almost irresistible. But for most employees, the ones exempt from overtime rules, their managers have little incentive to look for ways to use their time more efficiently. "We are a tired, stressed and overworked nation, which has many negative consequences for our personal health and the care of our children. As a nation, we work harder and longer than almost all of our competitors, and much of that work is uncompensated," writes Rodgers. "Time is our personal currency. We parcel it out, hour by hour, to meet the demands placed on us. We all pay a steep price, as individuals and as a nation, when we can't meet our most important obligations."
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by MrNemesis on Thursday June 25 2015, @12:35PM
That's the thing, I'm a salaried employee (i.e. full time contract), but by overtime is paid on top of my base salary/contracted hours. Do such an arrangements not happen in the states?
Does "not subject to overtime" mean that people earning more $23,660 don't get paid any?!
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @01:02PM
See, the problem is you are looking at this from a perspective of a first world nation with reasonable labor laws. In the US, the goal is to suck workers dry at every opportunity. In exchange for a established predictable salary every paycheck, US worker are expected to be wholy-owned subsidiaries of their employer. They must work as many hours as requested for that lump sum, any ideas they have, no matter how unrelated to their employer's field, are property of the employer, and the employment can end at any time on the whim of the employer.
(Score: 2) by MrNemesis on Thursday June 25 2015, @01:23PM
Wow, OK, in that light the headline and summary make a bit more sense.
But is this something that's legally mandated in your contract or is it something that workers do voluntarily? And if the latter, why voluntarily work extra time for no financial reward?
"To paraphrase Nietzsche, I have looked into the abyss and been sick in it."
(Score: 1, Troll) by zugedneb on Thursday June 25 2015, @01:34PM
See, the problem is, you are so into saving the world and protecting people here in europe, that they do not have the time and energy left to fight for themselves.
They keep downmodding every dengratory comment I post as troll, but for some fucking reason they can't see their own misery. Astonishing.
old saying: "a troll is a window into the soul of humanity" + also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ajax
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 25 2015, @02:41PM
To explain this a bit more, if there is work it's your responsibility to get it done. If it doesn't get done, when it's time to figure out if keeping you on board is worth it you will have a harder time convincing the management if you work 40 hours a week and everyone else works 50 etc. Of course it's hard to know where you stand, since pretty much your salary is a business secret int he US. So it's hard for you to know that the guy working 50-60 hours to your 40 may make twice what you make. The corporations like it that way, it serves their interests.
Good ideas are to ask HR during the hiring process questions that will give you the idea of what everyone int he company considers a workweek. Though it many places they are open about it, and the hiring manager will tell you everyone is expected to put in X amount of overtime a week. I personally don't work for a place that forces you to do overtime, and if I do stay late it's cause I know I'm on a roll and I can get a lot more done now than if I came back the next day. But I worked for a place where I would work 60 sometimes 70 hours, and life was just not worth living.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @05:53AM
See my previous comment of "the employment can end at any time on the whim of the employer." If a worker doesn't do this and is at all vulnerable to being replaced, the will be - either by an H1B, off-shoring or some other means of driving down labor. And again, since this is the US, there's very little in the way of unemployment, retraining or other help that a first world nation provides its labor force.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 26 2015, @08:51PM
There is no "voluntarily" here, the choice is "do it or you're fired (on the streets, homeless and starving)". All employers these days do this shit, so there's no option to leave for a "better" employer. And any job that pays a living wage or better makes workers sign a contract that prevents them from getting similar work for the next 2+ years after they quit too.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by TheGratefulNet on Thursday June 25 2015, @02:40PM
there is a strange word in the US english system, called 'exempt'. ie, excluded.
the tech lobby paid congress to lower their 'costs' (wages for us working class stiffs). for decades, our people were paid overtime for all hours over 40. then, the lobbiests came and told congress 'we want our tech workers to be exempt from being paid over time. we want this and we're big so give it to us!'
they got it. a good 20 or more years ago, mabye even 30, its been this way.
the general way to understand this is: if you are a human robot and you have no 'creative control' over your job or how long things take, then you are hourly and not exempt from overtime. otoh, if you have any creativity at all (ie, you get to decide some things even if your boss makes 99% of the judgement calls) then you are no longer an 'unskilled tech worker' and you are exempt from overtime. so, even if you are doing what you are told and don't have any real ownership of the project, but maybe you are writing software, you will never be paid overtime in the US laws because 'writing software' will never quality as non-exempt. if your boss gives you a job that takes 50 hours and demands you do it this week, you have to fit it in and you cannot bill beyond 40.
its fucked up! in a nutshell, its wrong and its fake and it depresses wages and lets companies keep more of their profits (which is ALL the USA is about, for the last 20 or so years, now).
and so, only assembly line workers get overtime and even then, I'm sure there are loopholes to avoid paying those guys their fair share, as well.
the US is the least fair of all the modern countries in the world. we have a lot of good infrastructure here to get business and tech done, but we refuse to treat our people with any respect.
I've heard its quite different in europe, for example. and the diff between the ceo pay and worker pay is over 400x here in the US. I think its much more reasonable over seas.
the US seems to have a 'give all your money to us, the super rich' mentality. a scorched earth winner-take-all view of things. if anyone thinks the US is going to be around in its current shape 10 years from now, you have another thing coming (as they say). this is not sustainable; and I wonder at what point, the lower and middle classes will finally revolt. it will take a shortage of supply of many key goods, but that's coming too, if we don't change our ways.
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."