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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

#121

Post by kyllo »

bentcorner wrote: post #113
michaelochurch wrote: post #27

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. 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?

Ha. michaelochurch almost literally wrote a book about the Gervais Principle, see his 26-part blog series on the topic: http://michaelochurch.wordpress.com/2013/08/06/gervais-macle...

And I don't think there are really any Losers destined for Cluelessness. The Clueless are the people who don't understand office politics, or think they can climb the career ladder simply by working hard and being loyal employees (not through strategic social climbing). Losers are people who understand and see the ladder there but choose not to be social climbers. They gossip, do crossword puzzles, punch out and go spend time with their kids. There are lots of Clueless destined to become Losers once they get burned out and realize what's up. Once you've learned that you can't unlearn it.

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

#123

Post by mynewwork »

pudo wrote: post #72

This is one of these HN discussion moments when you, our American friends, just have imagine all of Europe sitting with an open mouth, enjoying the radical feeling of labour law disaster tourism.

Funny, "labor law disaster tourism" could also explain how an American feels visiting Spain, France or Italy right now.

No system is perfect, but let's not pretend labor laws in the EU don't come with massive downsides (unemployment, difficulty to start or grow a business, purchasing power of discretionary income).

Here's a simple rule of thumb for understanding the situation in the US: if you have to be at work at a specific time and get scheduled breaks, you probably get paid overtime. If you're judged on your output and nobody notices when you go get coffee, eat lunch or start in the morning, you probably get paid a consistent salary regardless of exact hours you were in the office.

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

#124

Post by gnu8 »

toehead2000 wrote: post #119
Iftheshoefits wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You understood my comment correctly. False consciousness is a good explanation because of the fact that tech workers accept such a meager proportion of the profits generated by their work without complaint. Why would anyone knowingly accept less money than they're worth? They wouldn't, knowingly. It must be unknowingly. They must not know they're being exploited because there is no significant organization. Instead they all act as "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and try to increase their wealth incrementally, by competing amongst themselves for promotions and raises, working 100 hour weeks at startups for equity, and so on.

You suggest that they look elsewhere for a better deal, as if the free market price for their labor is by definition a fair price, but it is not, because of the power differential between capital and labor. It's not that all business collude consciously against labor(1), it's simply that the exception in the law for tech workers drives the price down, because it's purely good management not to pay any more than necessary for labor.

I'm not suggesting mass strikes, labor unions, and Marxist claptrap as a solution. Removing the loophole would be an entirely reasonable starting point. I've never seen anything approaching a rational justification for the tech worker exemption.

(1) Except when they do, like with the recent wage fixing scandal amongst a subset of well known companies.

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

#125

Post by jonathansizz »

fred_durst wrote: post #38
allsystemsgo wrote: post #3

I don't get it. So if I'm working overtime for my employer, a lot, I'm entitled to money? I get that my work after hours is essentially "free" labor. But I wasn't aware that there are actually laws that say salaried employees are entitled to more compensation when working after hours.

The best part about it is when you think about what your hourly rate would be if you made $80,000 and worked 60 hours a week with 20 of them being time and a half overtime. Comes out to around $22/hr base rate. You start doing that around $50k and you are around the same pay rate as an overnight stocker at a grocery with couple years on the job.

Really? I know a couple of guys who work nights at Wal-Mart, and they make around $10/hr.

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

#126

Post by gergles »

larrys wrote: post #107
parfe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Edit: Reason for downvotes? Because you're bragging about screwing workers out of paid rest time. http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/hoursworked/screenEE5.asp How obscure!

Not true. I was bragging about negotiating the government down. Reason you (and others) jumped to that conclusion?

Liquidated damages the DOL collects are paid out to the workers, so the assumption is that you are bragging about screwing the workers by 'negotiating' damages.

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

#127

Post by fred_durst »

jonathansizz wrote: post #125
fred_durst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best part about it is when you think about what your hourly rate would be if you made $80,000 and worked 60 hours a week with 20 of them being time and a half overtime. Comes out to around $22/hr base rate. You start doing that around $50k and you are around the same pay rate as an overnight stocker at a grocery with couple years on the job.

Really? I know a couple of guys who work nights at Wal-Mart, and they make around $10/hr.

My back of the napkin put $50K @ 60 hours put at just above $13/hr base rate. Taking a look at Glassdoor, my guess would be several years of small raises would get you pretty close.

http://www.glassdoor.com/Salaries/night-stocker-salary-SRCH_...

I would assume it depends on the part of the country you are in as well.

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

#128

Post by incision »

toehead2000 wrote: post #84
incision wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>'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 demons…

I really don't understand the point you're trying to make here. The parent says that tech industry workers are "deluded" because they think of themselves as part of the "ownership class" rather than the "working class," thus allowing the "fruits of their labor" to be "stolen," so clearly he's talking about the behavior of individuals, albeit en masse. Because they're deluded, they're acting irrationally. All I'm sayi…

>'All I'm saying that given the job fluidity within the tech industry as a whole, it is unlikely that individuals are going to allow themselves to be compensated at rates very much less than the value they provide.'

The industry is not necessarily fluid [1] and more importantly any intra-industry fluidity there might be is irrelevant in the context of an entire industry demonstrating the issue you mean to avoid.

>'So the other side to the parents argument is that maybe the tech industry as a whole is not deluded, maybe it just wants this freedom.'

I'd hardly call that 'the other side'. A possibility, sure and if you personally feel that way, fine.

To suggest that the industry as a whole would or does consciously trade an considerable amount of pay for that 'freedom' is absurd.

Also, please stop selectively quoting the grandparent (neatly avoiding the predicating 'partially' of course) in these responses as if you didn't just sum up and summarily dismiss an entire side of this discussion with 'go find another job' in the intervening posts.

1: http://pando.com/2014/03/22/revealed-apple-and-googles-wage-... - Note: 1M people is a enormous number in relation to an industry the BLS sizes at ~4M, plenty large enough to be worth considering as capable of characterizing an entire industry.

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

#129

Post by larrys »

gergles wrote: post #126
larrys wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. I was bragging about negotiating the government down. Reason you (and others) jumped to that conclusion?

Liquidated damages the DOL collects are paid out to the workers, so the assumption is that you are bragging about screwing the workers by 'negotiating' damages.

Let me ask you a question. Do you personally (or anyone else) think that there is anything wrong with trying to negotiate down what the government tried to recover and possibly penalize? Before you answer please review the facts here again:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8138922

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

#130

Post by dinkumthinkum »

allsystemsgo wrote: post #3

I don't get it. So if I'm working overtime for my employer, a lot, I'm entitled to money? I get that my work after hours is essentially "free" labor. But I wasn't aware that there are actually laws that say salaried employees are entitled to more compensation when working after hours.

I'm bemused by your surprise that that people would be entitled to "money" (the very thought) for working. :)
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