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Also, if you've never seen wage theft, you've never worked in fast food. It happened all the time to me and my friends in the suburbs.
Disgusting, but not surprising. A corporation is a soulless entity with one goal: maximize profits. That doesn't produce ethical, human-friendly actions.
IMO, any company that asks employees to work more than 40 hours a week and doesn't pay for those hours is doing 'wage theft'. Classifying employees as exempt seem to be a common method used by employers. It surprises me how often on HN startup employees claim to work 70-80 hours without any complaints. And, startup employers expect more hours without paying.
"More specifically, the special computer employee exemption applies to workers who apply systems analysis techniques and procedures to determine hardware, software, or system functional specifications, or who design, develop, test or modify computer systems or programs based on user or design specifications."[1]
However, if a startup (or any other company) has non-exempt employees such as clerical workers or cleaning staff, they must be paid overtime if they work over 40 hours a week.
Of course, if a company wants to pay a software developer for overtime, they're free to do so. I've never heard of that being done, however.
[1] http://www.flsa.com/computer.html
See also: http://www.flsa.com/coverage.html
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really - a corporation is a group of people. Sometimes those in control of it have no goal other than profit maximization, but by no means always.
Well, often if those running a corporation do not have profit maximization as their primary goal, they are voted out by investors. Essentially, maximizing profit becomes the job of the leaders as requested by those invested. There are some exceptions where corporations are profitable by targeting towards environmental things, or other causes, but the bottom line of profit is still there... Especially so with larger c…
There are a fair few examples in tech where founders have managed to hold on to a disproportionate amount of control and can much more accurately said to be fully "in charge", and those are the cases gress is claiming exists.
Disgusting, but not surprising. A corporation is a soulless entity with one goal: maximize profits. That doesn't produce ethical, human-friendly actions.
In comparison, the police force has one goal: to serve and protect. Therefore their actions are always ethical and human-friendly.
IMO, any company that asks employees to work more than 40 hours a week and doesn't pay for those hours is doing 'wage theft'. Classifying employees as exempt seem to be a common method used by employers. It surprises me how often on HN startup employees claim to work 70-80 hours without any complaints. And, startup employers expect more hours without paying.
In the U.S., the classification of exempt vs. non-exempt employees is specified by federal law, so companies can't just make that decision on their own. Unfortunately, software developers are legally exempted from having to be paid overtime: "More specifically, the special computer employee exemption applies to workers who apply systems analysis techniques and procedures to determine hardware, software, or system fun…
Personally, I have seen exempt status being abused by companies. One technology company I worked for classified certain technical roles as exempt until the company merged with another company. I was not purview to the decision making or what led to reversing the decision, but during the merger process, these technical roles were reclassified as non-exempt.
From http://www.trinet.com/resources/industry_articles/exempt_vs_...
"In California, employees falling within the computer professionals exemption must be paid at least $39.90 per hour, which translates to a monthly salary of $6,927.75 and an annual salary of $83,132.93 (these figures typically increase every year)."
Edit: A better reference - http://www.shrm.org/templatestools/hrqa/pages/californiaexem...
I have no idea how much of an issue this is and what the real-world implications for the individuals are, but if it has become a systematic phenomenon, then maybe it's worth rethinking the rules?
If it really is as wide-spread as they say, then having everyone play by the book might result in a redistribution of large amounts of money, thus impacting inflation .. which I guess is hardly in anyone's interest.
IMO, any company that asks employees to work more than 40 hours a week and doesn't pay for those hours is doing 'wage theft'. Classifying employees as exempt seem to be a common method used by employers. It surprises me how often on HN startup employees claim to work 70-80 hours without any complaints. And, startup employers expect more hours without paying.
In the U.S., the classification of exempt vs. non-exempt employees is specified by federal law, so companies can't just make that decision on their own. Unfortunately, software developers are legally exempted from having to be paid overtime: "More specifically, the special computer employee exemption applies to workers who apply systems analysis techniques and procedures to determine hardware, software, or system fun…
http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/efte/exemptions_from_minimum...
Disgusting, but not surprising. A corporation is a soulless entity with one goal: maximize profits. That doesn't produce ethical, human-friendly actions.
Not really - a corporation is a group of people. Sometimes those in control of it have no goal other than profit maximization, but by no means always.
My wife works in a hotel (housekeeping) and she tells me the same thing. Every week she has to go with great care through her payslip to check if she's been paid correctly. When they've made a mistake and we contact the hotels finance department it's like; "Oops, sorry." but my gut feeling is that they do this on purpose. Imagine, scamming thousands of employees per week on few hours here and there, must be quite a s…
Of course, debts in the other direction (from the less-powerful to the more-powerful) are considered sacred.
This is more universal than just the US, and than a specific point in time.