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I had this happen to me at a company that I owned in the past. I got the DOL to chop the total amount due in half and then got them to allow us to pay it out over 4 or 5 years. (All without a lawyer btw...) 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!
> This company has shown a great deal of integrity by fully cooperating with investigators and stepping up to the plate without hesitation to help make workers whole ... We are particularly pleased that LinkedIn also has committed to take positive and practical steps towards securing future compliance. I'm surprised they're getting praised so much for complying. It's not like they had a choice. Instead of commending…
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…
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.
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Some excerpts that help explain it: The FLSA requires that covered, nonexempt employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular hourly rates for hours worked beyond 40 per week. With few exceptions, to be exempt an employee must (a) be paid at least $23,600 per year ($455 per week), and (b) be paid on a salary basis, and also (c) perform e…
There is some debate about what exactly an exempt position is too. Companies seem to abuse what they consider to be an exempt position to the point that eventually employees fight back. I believe this happened a few years ago a RIM or AT&T. For example if you are working a support job that regularly requires you to work 50+ hour weeks you should probably be getting overtime pay.
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.
Some excerpts that help explain it: The FLSA requires that covered, nonexempt employees be paid at least the federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour for all hours worked, plus time and one-half their regular hourly rates for hours worked beyond 40 per week. With few exceptions, to be exempt an employee must (a) be paid at least $23,600 per year ($455 per week), and (b) be paid on a salary basis, and also (c) perform e…
Edit - IANAL of course, but all research I've been able to find on the subject indicates this is likely true. The statute of limitations is 4 years I think, so there's a lot of back-pay that can accumulate in this sort of situation. Keep in mind that in CA overtime is defined as 1.5x for hours that exceed 40 in a week or 8 in a day, and 2x for hours that exceed 12 in day. Even if you only work 40 hours a week if you occasionally pull a long day or all-nighter you are supposed to be receiving overtime.
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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…
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 stopped being surprised that people actually believe such "claptrap" long ago, but am still amused by it.
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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.
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> "Unlike the cleaning staff, who can "be shown the door if that's how they feel about it."" Cleaning staff are (overwhelmingly) entitled to overtime pay, by law.
yes, that is my point. they're entitled to it precisely because they're not in a position to demand it. (according to this possible logic.)
Tech workers are more-well-paid than the cleaning staff and generally better situated to negotiate for any given job. But I don't see how that necessarily carries over to increased success in negotiating payment schemes that differ from the legal and industry standard for the position.
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As a EU citizen I hoped to see a /s under your post. I do not want to be rude but here it is obvious that if you work overtime you must be compensated and also very well (usually 1,5-2 times more than regular hours). And not only it, in some states, like mine, you can work only a limited amount of hours (6 or 8, I don't remember well) overtime per week, otherwise it is illegal.
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.
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)
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Everyone reading this thread would probably appreciate it if you provided more information. Your brevity almost sounds like gloating as it says nothing in regards to the well-being of your employees except that the money that you managed to owe them less than half of what the DOL originally figured. In your other comment, you mentioned "some hidden rule"– what rule? How did you go about resolving it? I expect you cou…
"Your brevity almost sounds like gloating" Well yes I was bragging. I was pretty proud that I got it cut in half after an attorney told me to just pay the full amount that (he was a labor lawyer) he didn't think they would budge. So yes I was proud that I did that but more importantly wanted to point out that it was possible, at least then in that particular office. In business sometimes just knowing something is pos…
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.
Seriously though, there are companies all over the place, from startups where everyone is expected to work 80 hours a week to established companies where people have kids and most employees work 40-45 hours a week with the occasional 50-60 during a release.
Some companies leverage it (the term we use her is "work-life balance").
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/eng?query=work+life+balan...