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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

#111

Post by biot »

mreiland wrote: post #92
conistonwater wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, b…

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.

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.

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

#112

Post by ceallen »

hueving wrote: post #103
throwawayh3d8 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds bitter. Software developers are certainly not regarded as socially lower than a nurse, quite the opposite (at least in Europe). But I _do_ agree that, compared to many other professions prestiges is low. I also agree that it's time for unions, although simply owing the company collectively may work better. More importantly, people should not allow themselves to be exploited and realise that doing so is just as…

>I also agree that it's time for unions That will definitely not help bring prestige to the field. Professions that require unions are seen as being so easy to enter that they need to form unions to avoid the effects of the free market.

Doctors and lawyers regulate who can enter their field. Doctors even control how many students med schools can accept each year. They seem to still be 'prestigious' professions. They were just smart enough to avoid the word 'union', since it's been tarnished by 50 years of political attacks.

I'd also trade in a lot of prestige for the guarantee of employers not having overtime as a free resource that employees are expected to give with a smile.

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

#113

Post by bentcorner »

michaelochurch wrote: post #27
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.

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. Very well said. They take everything literally and accept management's account of all thin…

For some reason I find this topic fascinating, and at the same time I feel completely hopeless in navigating in any of it.

What do you think of The Gervais Principle?

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2009/10/07/the-gervais-principle-o...

High Status = Sociopath, Low Status = Losers destined for Cluelessness?

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

#114

Post by morgante »

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.

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

#115

Post by Kluny »

mreiland wrote: post #92
conistonwater wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, b…

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.

It could very well have been an unintentional violation of the rules. A few bad habits here and there turn into a cultural practice before anyone notices, everyone assumes that someone else must be in charge of enforcing compliance with that particular rule and that mythical someone must know something they don't that makes the rule breaking okay, somehow. It's easy to do. Never ascribe to malice what can be covered with stupidity, etc. And don't forget that the people suffering from this rule violation and the ones who were supposed to be enforcing it could be the same people - companies are made of people.

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

#116

Post by [deleted] »

yulaow wrote: post #98
jessriedel wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Th original link is to a US company operating in the US being investigated for breaking US laws by the US government. This forum is hosted by a US company on US soil and the large majority of readers and commenters work in the US. It's safe to assume that allsystemsgo is talking about US law unless otherwise stated.

I am sorry, but what I meant was "I thought that in any developed country the overtime work was obviously paid" not that "oh I think you were in EU zone". Basically for me is very hard to understand why I should work for free ( I could want to work overtime for free, but if I am imposed to work overtime I must be paid)

[deleted]

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

#117

Post by maerF0x0 »

Shivetya wrote: post #24
tinco wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 norm…

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.

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.

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

#118

Post by cpwright »

johnward wrote: post #61
toehead2000 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or if you think that getting paid overtime is important, you are free to work in a field that pays overtime.

I am fairly certain that even if you include work outside of the 40 hours, my hourly rate is better than I would do otherwise.

On top of that, I can probably continue at this career for the next 35 years without a significant physical toll on my body.

If I thought otherwise, I would probably want to be an electrician; where if I owned my own business I still end up as an exempt employee.

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

#119

Post by toehead2000 »

Iftheshoefits wrote: post #95
toehead2000 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 missed the point entirely and then went off on a rant about the "left wing" which is unsupported by any evidence or even coherent argument in your comment. Implicit in your comment is an assumption that there is no information asymmetry and that power (real power--the social, political, and economic ability to actually assert oneself) is shared relatively equally between the owners of capital and laborers. I stop…

The main point of the parent is this:

"people who don't demand overtime pay are deluded/stupid/victims of false consciousness/act against their own interest"

right? This is was I took him gnu8 to mean when he said "... 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." What other point am I missing?

I think my post and the follow up make a pretty coherent argument that no, in fact, mass delusion on the part of tech industry workers is not the best explanation. The delusion argument is an argument from the "left wing," especially when given in terms of capital and labor and conflict between classes and so forth. That's just a positive statement, not a normative one, so I don't understand how that can constitute a "rant."

What I think might be illuminating to Europeans who are incredulous about how our workers would allow the "fruits of their labor to be stolen," would be to hear why they might not consider working unpaid overtime to be being stolen from.

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

#120

Post by taejo »

hueving wrote: post #101
yulaow wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sorry, but what I meant was "I thought that in any developed country the overtime work was obviously paid" not that "oh I think you were in EU zone". Basically for me is very hard to understand why I should work for free ( I could want to work overtime for free, but if I am imposed to work overtime I must be paid)

>Basically for me is very hard to understand why I should work for free ( I could want to work overtime for free, but if I am imposed to work overtime I must be paid) If you are in software engineering, the answer is that the US pays the best salaries in the world. You are not working for free if you are salaried. You sign a contract to fulfill certain duties regardless of the amount of time it takes.

That might be ok if that's what happened, but it doesn't actually. You sign a contract which says something like "The employee will perform the duties of a software engineer to the best of her/his ability"; it's basically up to the boss to decide what those duties are on any given day.
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