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

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

#61

Post by johnward »

toehead2000 wrote: post #43
gnu8 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are a lot of comments like this in this thread, the gist of which being "people who don't demand overtime pay are deluded/stupid/victims of false consciousness/act against their own interest." Pretty much everyone is an at will employee, free to go find another job. Since these exempt positions tend to be high skill, the logic behind these laws is that these kinds of employees don't need this extra layer of gov…

You are free to go find another position that also will not pay you for overtime.

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

#63

Post by honest_george »

yulaow wrote: post #59
honest_george wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had very different experiences working in the EU (Belgium). On my first day of work, I received a document containing company rules and guidelines. Overtime is never paid and it is considered "an engineer's pride" to fix any bugs in his own time. Of course this overtime isn't limited to bugfixing, and when there's a deadline coming up (there's always a deadline coming up) or when someting just isn't working you…

Can't you just signal to authorities or unions that you were dismissed for that reason (that is not a "good enough" reason on my state) and basically fuck up the entire company considering that that guidelines document would come up in even the simplest investigation? This would put your employer in a weak position, so weak you can easily even blackmail him

You can always sue of course (there is no union in the company). But what would you gain by doing so? They might be forced to hire you again, in which case you can be assured you will never receive a raise and will generally not enjoy working there a whole lot.

You could even try proving you worked too many hours, but that's quite hard to do (a list of start and end times would surely not suffice).

Edit: Also, they will surely claim that they did not tell you to perform that overtime, and that in fact you did so without them knowing.

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

#64

Post by serge2k »

logicallee wrote: post #40
walterbell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is lack of organized lobbying by IT/engineers: http://andreas.com/faq-overtime.html Another round of policy discussion is underway: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/us/politics/obama-will-see...

(Edited to be less sure.) A third reason might be the argument from market power stemming from the fact that if you can personally create $10 million of cold hard cash value using nothing but a bit of time in front of a computer, and with no long-term detrimental effects on you of any kind, then the fact that you are minting money creates a seller's market (just as there will always be a seller's market for legal cur…

That's all the more reason to demand overtime pay.

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

#65

Post by logicallee »

serge2k wrote: post #64
logicallee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Edited to be less sure.) A third reason might be the argument from market power stemming from the fact that if you can personally create $10 million of cold hard cash value using nothing but a bit of time in front of a computer, and with no long-term detrimental effects on you of any kind, then the fact that you are minting money creates a seller's market (just as there will always be a seller's market for legal cur…

That's all the more reason to demand overtime pay.

Yes, to demand it. My point is you can demand whatever you want. (Unlike the cleaning staff, who can "be shown the door if that's how they feel about it.")

It's not like being exempt means an employer is not allowed to offer you overtime pay. They can still do it. You can still demand it.

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

#66

Post by walterbell »

logicallee wrote: post #40
walterbell wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is lack of organized lobbying by IT/engineers: http://andreas.com/faq-overtime.html Another round of policy discussion is underway: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/12/us/politics/obama-will-see...

(Edited to be less sure.) A third reason might be the argument from market power stemming from the fact that if you can personally create $10 million of cold hard cash value using nothing but a bit of time in front of a computer, and with no long-term detrimental effects on you of any kind, then the fact that you are minting money creates a seller's market (just as there will always be a seller's market for legal cur…

It is the job of any lobby to carve out exceptions to rules. From the NYT article above:

"...Under current rules, if an employer declares that an employee’s primary responsibility is executive, such as overseeing a cleanup crew, then that worker can be exempted from overtime.

White House officials said those rules were sometimes abused by employers in an attempt to avoid paying overtime. The new rules could require that employees perform a minimum percentage of “executive” work before they can be exempted from qualifying for overtime pay.

“Under current rules, it literally means that you can spend 95 percent of the time sweeping floors and stocking shelves, and if you’re responsible for supervising people 5 percent of the time, you can then be considered executive and be exempt"

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

#67

Post by walterbell »

ulfw wrote: post #57
Semaphor wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, if you work overtime in the U.S. you do not get compensated for it?

Silicon Valley wouldn't exist if those would be paid. It's one of the small 'perks' of making a 6 digit salary. You work so many unpaid overtime hours that your actual hourly wage isn't THAT high anymore. (especially if you also take only 10 vacation days into account etc)

A counter-argument is that overtime implements a necessary feedback loop against poor management and project planning. Overworking creative staff may not be optimal for innovation.

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

#68

Post by ulfw »

walterbell wrote: post #67
ulfw wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Silicon Valley wouldn't exist if those would be paid. It's one of the small 'perks' of making a 6 digit salary. You work so many unpaid overtime hours that your actual hourly wage isn't THAT high anymore. (especially if you also take only 10 vacation days into account etc)

A counter-argument is that overtime implements a necessary feedback loop against poor management and project planning. Overworking creative staff may not be optimal for innovation.

It clearly isn't. I highly doubt people who work 10-12hr days actually really get efficient creative work done for those hours.

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

#69

Post by EpicEng »

romanovcode wrote: post #47
EpicEng wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Well, you may be shocked to hear this, but not everyone is in the exact same situation as you.

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

#70

Post by incision »

toehead2000 wrote: post #43
gnu8 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There are a lot of comments like this in this thread, the gist of which being "people who don't demand overtime pay are deluded/stupid/victims of false consciousness/act against their own interest." Pretty much everyone is an at will employee, free to go find another job. Since these exempt positions tend to be high skill, the logic behind these laws is that these kinds of employees don't need this extra layer of gov…

>'They have the wherewithal to go find another employer if they feel they're being treated unfairly.'

That completely misses the point.

The parent is observing a behavior in the industry as a whole, not a specific employer.

Argue that the industry doesn't evidence this or argue that programmers should become plumbers, but boiling it down to 'go find another job' is nonsense in the context of an entire industry demonstrating the issue you mean to avoid.

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