Why I Don't Do Unpaid Overtime and Neither Should You

This is true, and there is no problem with occasionally having to do a bit of crunch time to meet a deadline, or even doing the odd extra half-hour reasonably frequently.

OTOH, There is a problem if an employer routinely assigns work that cannot reasonably be achieved within normal working hours; or requires your presence on an 0600 international conference call, but still expects you to work the full 11 hours until your normal going home time; or waits until you've worked a 7.45 hour day before giving you a 4 hour task with a deadline of 0930 tomorrow. All of these are dirty tricks played by managers to get more work done than they are prepared to pay for.

>And, in any case, the U.S. law gives such employees freedom to become "slaves" if they so choose for their own reason.

Do you have the freedom to choose not to become a slave? Of course, you could change career to an hourly-rate one, or try to get a highly sought-after position with a benevolent or wise employer who takes care not burn out their employees; but the former doesn't sound like freedom at all, and the latter still leaves the majority of normal people vulnerable to exploitation.

You might respond by saying that it is no employer's interest to exploit their employees in such a way, after all, a burnt-out employee is useless, and an experienced employee is valuable. However, that is only true if an employer has to live with the consequences of burning out their employees. No one wants to burn out their rockstars, or the stalwart workhorses that will continue bringing good value for decades to come; but who cares about those middle-of-the-road employees in their mid-twenties who are just going to go and work for someone else in a few years anyway? You might as well milk them until they no longer produce, then chuck them out when they become ineffective.

The real question is, "How much do you want to work?" If you are a talented hacker, you can answer that however you want. If you are 21 and looking for someone to teach you a trade while paying a good wage in a tough job market, it is a more difficult choice.

In some industries, maybe. I've worked in several "old school" design agencies (doing a bit of interactive work), and many designers and production folks are absolutely worked to the bone (frequent all-nighters, weekends, etc). Sure, some of them quit, but there's always somebody else to take their place. And working long hours is all "career development" until you're out of the trenches every day.

Some industries just function this way (gaming, as others have pointed out), and people entering those industries seem happy to accept it.

I think this is the core point in this issue. The employer-employee relationship is an inherently asymetric one (in the vast majority of cases). Anything labeled as freedom of contract or any such thing is only there to favor employers to execute their will without being held accountable for the consequences to the employee/candidate.

The only freedom the employee really has is the freedom to suck up the abuse or leave empty-handed.