The U.S. Department of Labor reports:
LinkedIn Corp. has paid $3,346,195 in overtime back wages and $2,509,646 in liquidated damages to 359 former and current employees working at company branches in California, Illinois, Nebraska, and New York. An investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division found that LinkedIn was in violation of the overtime and record-keeping provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. When notified of the violations, LinkedIn agreed to pay all the overtime back wages due and take proactive steps to prevent repeat violations.
LinkedIn failed to record, account and pay for all hours worked in a workweek, investigators found. In addition to paying back wages and liquidated damages, LinkedIn entered into an enhanced compliance agreement with the department that includes agreeing to: provide compliance training and distribute its policy prohibiting off-the-clock work to all nonexempt employees and their managers; meet with managers of current affected employees to remind them that overtime work must be recorded and paid for; and remind employees of LinkedIn's policy prohibiting retaliation against any employee who raises concerns about workplace issues.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:33PM
I'm curious about what jobs the nonexempt employees did. LinkedIn doesn't have a product they ship, or a service that people perform - it's a web site. Usually web companies are very lean and don't employ many people. I'm sure LinkedIn has web and mobile developers, but they'd be exempt employees. Management would be exempt. Any LinkedIn insiders reading who can tell us more?
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 06 2014, @01:56PM
"but they'd be exempt employees"
That's an area of crookedness in our system, just to F over STEM people, because some laborers are more equal than other laborers, etc. I have worked as a programmer both salary and hourly employee, although hourly is admittedly pretty rare.
Ops people are often hourly as are many tech-level employees. Help desk, call center, both internal only and external. Needless to say non-production employees are the same everywhere and I've never heard of a salaried receptionist although it probably happens. Fairly rare for admin assistants to go on salary.
I've known both hourly and salary graphics artists and I can't say which is more likely. Contract work by the hour is the most likely in my experience.
(Score: 2) by strattitarius on Wednesday August 06 2014, @03:08PM
Depends. Front desk receptionist? Probably hourly, probably universally. Admin assistants, however can range wildly in my experience. From $10/hr to $60k/yr, hourly to salary. And certainly once you put "Executive" in there, it's salary.
Frankly I have hated the few times I was hourly. I just don't watch the clock that much. And because I am a geek, sometimes it was hard to tell if I was *really* working, or was it a hobby effort? Sure it was on a work project, but they didn't ask me to stay and put in 4 extra hours because of that "it's sooooo close" feeling. They would have waited until next week. So there was more than a few times that I clocked out and finished the job on my own time. It's part of the problem when your hobby and work are aligned (but it also makes work more interesting and enjoyable).
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 06 2014, @06:00PM
Thats just screwed up. Stockholm syndrome.
"but it also makes work more interesting and enjoyable"
Yeah a lot of people have textile hobbies like my grandma used to, but that doesn't mean its right or moral to set up sweatshops of near slave laborers. Ditto the existence of gardeners doesn't mean its OK to enslave ag workers, or people own pets so veterinarians and pet shop employees should all be indentured servants.
The existence of hobbyist home improvement dudes shouldn't excuse slavery in the building trades.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by strattitarius on Wednesday August 06 2014, @10:13PM
But due to other reasons I am no longer with that company. Too bad, because it was an above average place until the last year or so.
Slashdot Beta Sucks. Soylent Alpha Rules. News at 11.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 06 2014, @10:28PM
My boss relies on that sentiment. I work in TV production, we pay minimum wage, are not allowed to seek other jobs without the employer's permission, and absolutely must work free overtime each month. For the business.
The argument given to us is that we are all being given this amazing opportunity.
Well, it may be true that we have an opportunity, but every single employer in the city can argue the same - we have 4k unemployed in my town.
What is being omitted from their argument is that they are benefiting greatly. They make a lot of money and are deliberately ripping us off: our time sheets are modified with the intent of defrauding us of wages, they refuse to obey many basic employment laws just because they are providing us with an amazing opportunity.
My advice to you is not to do it again, because if you do it once, you can keep doing it, and they won't want to pay you for that. It is an amazing opportunity for you to do this work for them.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Thexalon on Wednesday August 06 2014, @04:38PM
Absolutely, that's crookedness. In fact, this has come up a couple of times so I decided to do a little research to find out where it came from.
It turns out there's a provision buried in the Small Business Job Protection Act of 1996 [wikipedia.org] that specifically makes computer programmers exempt from overtime rules if they make more than $24K per year. And it now means that when employers routinely whip programmers to work 85-hour weeks, they don't have to pay them an extra dime.
It appears as though the relevant provision was first introduced by Ted Kennedy (D-MA). It didn't even pass the first time around, but then was buried in a bunch of other amendments (also mostly related to nothing else in the bill) that were introduced by a bipartisan working group. What I don't know is if Kennedy did this because he was getting paid off, or to convince some other senators (who were getting paid off) to accept other provisions of the bill they otherwise would oppose.
This is how some really nasty slime ends up in the sausages that Congress creates.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 1) by arslan on Thursday August 07 2014, @03:25AM
The brute labor they hire to just randomly click on endorse buttons on behalf of accounts? Otherwise how'd we explain random endorsements from linked people out of the blue...
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday August 06 2014, @02:01PM
Would you endorse Linked IN as having the Skill - labor abuse yes / no?
After a funny HN article a couple days ago my profile has endorsed skills like "Cut & Paste" and the like. I read that some people get practical jokes added like various sex acts etc.