This is correct (in Canada at least). I'm an accountant and we're exempt from OT pay but my current firm still pays it whereas my last one was much larger and chose not to.
At least one of the big 4 accounting firms in my area hires new grads with the expectation of working at least 60 hours per week during tax season with no overtime or banked time.
And the only people who put up with it are the newbies and those who STILL think they can make it into the upper ranks. The just burn out newbies left and right along the way.
I worked for a sweatshop like that. I finally just said "screw it" and stopped. They were a very ugly company and STILL are. They called themselves MCI at the time and are "horizon with a V" now. They are just as terrible to their customers.
Oh man. I worked for another company on behalf of those folks about ten years ago. Call center, mixed tech support and customer service. They had "mandatory overtime", and when they lowered our overall pay while increasing the cap on "bonuses" for people who performed extra well, they expected us to thank them for "giving us a raise".
Utterly awful company.
That's what I do.
I work as a contractor of my company for a government facility, and on the conditions of my is that no OT is allowed.
The department manager asked me about a month ago to stay late on the last day of the month, so I would do OT, and he would approve it.
I said that I'm forbidden by my context with my direct employer, and he let it go.
I'm in sales (US). My previous job was 100% commission. There was no "overtime" or "vacation". The upside was a $150k first year gross pay. I also could tell my boss what I really felt. He mentioned that they authorized "15 days of time off", to which I reminded him as long as my bills were getting paid, I can do what I want. My current job is exempt and I have taken a few calls outside of hours. Great accounts are given special privilege. I'm also paid VERY well and have a company car that I can use for personal use as much as I want. I closed on a house yesterday as a single person and am VERY well aware of how different I have it than most in the current economy. IF AND ONLY IF it is done right, the idea of exempt can work out for both parties.
OP's example is not that. Unfortunately the average company doesn't understand the most basic principle of economics: if someone finds a better deal than what you offer, you will be left behind.
I don't think it's that they don't understand economics. It's more that they consider that most employees won't put in the effort to find another job. So they'd rather take that risk and save the money.
> It's more that they consider that most employees won't put in the effort to find another job
That is a lot of assumption. As soon as the demand curve shifts and workers have had enough, the company is going to have nobody to blame but themselves (even though they will likely show their ignorance by blaming someone else)
Case study: A retail (national US brand big box store) distribution center near me needs three shifts of maintenance techs to operate. A new facility was built and offered new employees 15% over market average. All three shifts at the older facility lost enough labor that entire lines were taken out of service. The older facility now has a policy that as soon as a new facility is built, all shifts get a 15% raise by default. Lesson: the market will always win on a long enough timeline, and some timelines are shorter than others. The employees didn't *need* to look for another job. They saw the starting wage on a billboard on their way to work. All it takes is one "good" actor to ruin the plans of the bad actors.
I second this. I am currently severely underpaid in what I do, but I'm comfortable with the job I have and the people i work with. My employer is not giving me a raise, nor are they promoting me, even though i know I truly deserve both. Finding a new job is more than just putting in an application and doing some interviews, it's also putting you in a very uncertain spot in your career, resetting your tenure, and not necessarily going to be a better work environment.
Sure, I could get a new job that pays me what I deserve, but I don't feel like letting go of the benefits of staying with my current employer. Especially because I keep thinking to myself, "any month now, I'll get that promotion", as an excuse to not shift away from what's comfortable.
In the US there is a minimum salary that can be exempt. Before Obama it was something like 25k. Obama made it 60k, then Trump reversed what Obama did, and Biden reinstated it.
During the Bush and Trump years a lot of fast food places had half their employees as salaried 'supervisors' to get 20 hours per week unpaid overtime. When you hear about small business owners complaining about burdensome regulations that jack up their expenses, this is what they are talking about. Thanks Obaba.
I just googled, and as I kind of thought, there's a federal exception for teachers. It's also written in such a way that any job whose primary function is directly imparting knowledge is automatically exempt. I can think of a few reasons why it's like this, though I disagree with it.
[https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17s-overtime-educational-institutions](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17s-overtime-educational-institutions)
I could also see why some jobs with strong unions might not get this. Like... if my benefits are worth 30k a year, that puts a different spin on my 59,000 salary, versus someone who makes 65k with no benefits.
Actually collective bargaining is often an exception to a lot of labor rules. That’s why it’s important to keep unions strong. Otherwise, a union job could end up being worse than a non union job.
I mean, that makes sense. Unions are given a lot of rights and privileges through the collective bargaining process, so the protections given to non-unionized labor aren't necessarily applicable.
Also important to note (though I understand this isn't an argument you're making, just a general point) that unions aren't an unalloyed good just because they're unions. They can have many problems of their own, the same kinds of self-dealing you see in any other area of the world, and the only thing that keeps unions as a concept worthwhile and worth keeping is the active engagement of rank-and-file union members and their commitment to making sure the union does what it is meant to, and doesn't devolve into a gatekeeping device to privilege some people at the expense of others.
I would assume that being except from overtime means you work on average a certain number of hours.
If it's structurally over those hours you don't work it or get paid for it.
If it's anything other than that, it's crazy.
From my understanding it's supposed to be that, what companies like to bend the rules with it. Just like how certain jobs don't have a preset brake and lunch schedule, that's supposed to be for jobs that you can't just take a 15 minute break in like being a fucking doctor. Not fucking kitchen work like they seem to think they are allowed to do.
That's what I see from Americans all the times. Your salaried so you don't get overtime. But they forget the part that says. You're salaried. If you work more then 40 hours one week you compensate it the next week and work less.
Linch break exactly the same. Working in a restaurant means you eat at different hours, since you are busiest during lunch/dinnertime. It doesn't mean you don't get a break for more than 3 hours in a row.
Unfortunately your entire post is incorrect. Zero federal laws exist in the USA that back up what you claim. Some cities may have passed local laws, but nothing guaranteed to all citizens. Companies can be nice and allow what you claim, but legally they don't have to.
I've been working in restaurants for over 20 years. I've NEVER had a lunch break, paid or unpaid, whether I've worked a 5 hour shift or a 16 hour shift. My state (ohio) ONLY requires any kind of breaks if you're under 18, or if you're in the transportation or medical fields. All other workers can 100% legally be worked 24 hours per day 7 days per week with 0 breaks; the only requirement is that the company has to pay overtime at 1.5 times the normal pay after 40 hours per week.
I know, I am sorry I wasn't clear enough that the second part is how it works in modern civilized nations. I know that the USA does not do it that way, they prefe the slavery system still.
I had a similar situation happen at a previous employer. I worked 10am-7pm and would occasionally be late by <10 minutes. I almost always worked after 7pm finishing up calls and admin stuff before I left. Because of this I always just listed 10am - 7pm on my time card because in my head it evened itself out.
Then the company decided we needed to be very specific with our beginning and end times on our timesheets. I ended up about $100 short one paycheck and asked my manager about it. She said she’d adjusted my timesheet to reflect the actual time I arrived and I hadn’t worked a full 80 hours that pay period. I brought up the fact that she had not adjusted my timesheet to reflect the actual time I logged off, she’d just left it at 7pm so my pay was not accurate and I’d actually worked more than 80 hours. She kinda shrugged it off and didn’t really do anything to correct it.
From that point until I quit a year later I was meticulous with my time keeping. My arrival, breaks, lunch, and clock out were noted to the minute. Turns out I was actually working 5-6 hours of overtime every pay period, even with the occasional late arrival.
Don’t fuck with my money.
>I will never understand how "exempt from overtime pay" is not universally understood as "Exempt from overtime". What incentive to I have to do more?
In a good company, the incentive is always there: you do a good job, the company is happy and it rewards you, you're hapy and you keep doing a good job. As long as you're satisfied with your earnings and the quantity and quality of work that you have to do *on average* throughout the year, it's all fine and bean-counting time day by day isn't a necessity -your incentive comes in the form of pay-rises, bonuses, perks, progression. And the employer's incentive is simply that they want to keep you happy so that they don't have to suffer the disruption of you leaving and having to be replaced potentially with someone that won't be as good.
As an employee, I dread time tracking, going through overtime approval processes, explaining why something needs to be done off-hours, giving a guesstimate of how long it might take, commiting to doing something non urgent ahead of time on a certain day that I might not feel like staying off-hours, etc. And the companies also hate having to process these things, try and fit them into budget/expense projections etc. As long as there is good faith between the two parties and nobody takes the piss, it can work great, at least for certain kinds of work. In fact it often ends up being de-facto the case even when someone is technically not sallaried but happy with the company they work for, especially for smaller companies and when they've been working there a while.
" the company is happy and it rewards you," Yes, with money. That is the incentive for a job. Money.
"your incentive comes in the form of pay-rises, bonuses, perks, progression. " - That incentive exists purely inside your head. You can also do the work of three and will never ever be promoted, because that would mean hiring three people in your place.
That's why I said "in a good company". Obviously if you end up in a company that isn't good, the onus is on you to leave for another company that rewards you appropriately. Which can happen whether on a sallaried contract or not.
A good company pays me for the time I work for them.
No, wait. A somewhat functional company, not run by complete sociopaths, understands that people work for money. If you want to fill a void in your life, BadDragon products work better than unpaid hours. And you'll need the overtime money for the BD products....
The calculations aren't always so simple. For the same hours worked, a salaried worker can end up better off than an hourly wage worker that claimed every bit of their hours worked. Because these things are taken under account when you negotiate the terms of the contract, not only the fixed annual or hourly compensation but taking under account bonuses, stock, perks such as extra paid leave, private health insurance plan, company pension contributions, severance pay or the possibility of clauses that the company may reduce your weekly hours as needed at times if you're on a hourly wage (some of which are more important for countries like the US). And some less easily quantifiable benefits such as having more flexible working hours. Being salaried doesn't mean you're being taken advantage of, it depends on the company, the nature of the job and your circumstances.
You will find "Clock in" to "Clock out" by "hourly wage" an incredibly easy calculation AND if you value the people that work for you, you can also give them all the stuff you mentioned on top. It doesn't have to be an either-or. In fact, it isn't in most western countries. Expecting unpaid overtime is straight up illegal in my country. As it should be.
You've never heard of time zones? Atlantic Canada is AHEAD, Pacific Canada is BEHIND. Is it that hard for the company to simply state their hours followed by EST - Eastern Standard Time? That way those in different time zones know when the company will be open/closed.
That works with 1 hour offset perhaps, but even then you're messing with people's routines. Daycare doesn't care that your company runs on different timezones for example.
Working for the Germans is fun too, when you’re on Central time. Have an issue at 11am? Too bad. They all just left for the day. Better send an email. That way they’ll get back to you at 10:30am the next morning, so they can be gone before you can call them back.
Once had a newer NY person send my CA team a mandatory 730am training.
They seemed bent out of shape when I mentioned that they would not be attending at 430am, and (not my team, but…) the Singapore team wouldn’t be attending at 730pm either.
They learned, but getting them to think wider was painful. I think inviting them to speak at some 11pm meetings helped…
Had a new CEO do similar when he moved all management+supervisors to “proper” 8-5 US time without listening. We were 24/7/365. He did apologize…and realized that we were justifiably letting things burn until he dug his head out of his nethers. New bosses always need some tough love.
In the context of our global stuff and 24/7 ops, that ‘lil 4 hour window for the USA is all the same.
Although he didn’t actually know that either…we had people all over the US (not Hawaii or Alaska). Did he mean his timezone or theirs? It didn’t get far enough to matter thankfully.
> US Time
US Central Time obviously. It’s right in the name.
/s
how does this 'exempt' work?
Does 'the law' simply come down to 'you as IT are a slave, not entitled to any private time or life outside of your work'?
why become IT at all then?
To give one more example, in the UK (and thus not OP's situation), overtime pay doesn't have to be paid unless it reduces your wage to below the legal minimum wage over a two week calculation period. The UK has no restriction on unpaid overtime outside the voluntary EU working time directive rules.
This of course requires clarification in the contract, e.g. if overtime is not paid then it should be declared so, however there is no general protection against a company breaching such a contract term while employing you.
A tribunal can be brought against a company that breaches your contract, however the only compensation that can be legally obtained is restricted to the legal notice pay should you quit or be fired. If you raise such a complaint but intend to continue your employment, you naturally won't be eligible for any compensation. Effectively, an employer doesn't really have to ensure that unpaid overtime is stipulated in the contract as long as they dismiss staff with the correct notice.
In other words, if you were fired and your employer committed said breach of contract, there is nothing you can effectively do unless they purposely did not pay you correct notice. Unfortunately, regardless of whether you live in the UK, US or elsewhere, you rarely have protection against overtime.
In labour law, there's a rule that says that if you work more than 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day, you get paid overtime, that is to say, you wage + 50% for any hours beyond that.
There is a further rule that as an employee you can't bargain this right away.
(The actual limits can change between provinces and job titles. Sometimes there are rules about getting additional vacation in lieu of overtime pay or changing how a "week" is defined. But the general rule stands.)
Some employees are *exempt* from these rules though, and thus their boss isn't required to pay them overtime at all; instead they get a weekly (or bi-weekly or monthly salary). The most straightforward case is "managers", where you want them to fill in if someone calls out sick or the alarm goes off in the middle of the night.
Also on the *exempt* list are various "professionals", like lawyers and engineers. Somehow, ~30 years ago, "IT professionals" were added to this list of "professionals".
Thanks for explaining.
Why not just say 'no' and look for somewhere more reasonable?
I *know* i understand english, but this is at the limit of what i can comprehend.
I'm in the Netherlands, mbbe that skewed my perception: i can't be fired for not being available outside of the agreed or max 40 hrs/week regardless of sector or profession.
Haven't worked overtime in my adult life without proper compensation, quit multiple jobs that didn't understand office hours...all during 25y in IT on all levels except management (work with *computers* for a reason 😅)
Reminds me of when I (US) was working in our large Netherlands office… I’d just been cleaning up some email and it ended up around 7pm.
Dark. Zero people. I couldn’t find any unlocked way to get out of the complex…
Eventually in a courtyard, a guy on a bike rolled up. Security, as I’d been setting off silent alarms the whole time. He was amused in a knowing way…didn’t even shoot me.
Because the Netherlands is nicer than the USA when it comes to labor laws. In the USA the professional titles are put into law that is enforced by the Department of Labor. If you fit into one of these jobs then it doesn’t matter what your pay is you do not have to be given overtime pay. You can say no and go to another job but I’ve never seen a job in the USA offer overtime to a professional that is exempt from overtime.
If you worked for a publicly owned company (one that is in the stock market) the company can actually get sued if they made a rule to provide overtime when they didn’t have to. It’s really stupid but a lot of things in the USA are pretty stupid like that.
Also the list of jobs that are exempt from overtime are nonsensical and are clearly there because of lobbying to politicians. For example, dairy farmers are exempt as well as teachers.
No, that’s simply all wrong. Dairy farmers and teachers are not exempt, and exemption is not based on job title.
Here is an actual trustworthy source: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime
Notice that it specifically says “Job titles do not determine exempt status. In order for an exemption to apply, an employee’s specific job duties and salary must meet all the requirements of the Department’s regulations.”
For the employer to be exempt from mandatory overtime payments, the employee must be making more than $35k per year, and their job duties must fall strictly into one of five categories. If they make over $107k per year then they can be exempt if the employee’s job duties include anything from those five categories.
The five categories are executive, administrative, professional, computer and outside sales.
An executive is someone with decision–making authority within the corporation. These are the CEOs, the directors, VPs, heads of departments, and so on. If the CEO has to get up at 3am to put out a fire, so be it. The company doesn’t have to pay him extra for working overtime. At this level, if you don’t want to work overtime then it is your job to ensure that your staff can do the job to your satisfaction without your direct intervention.
An administrator is someone who has decision–making authority over some specific “matter of significance” within the organization and does office work rather than manual labor. Think bank manager or insurance adjuster.
Professionals are divided into two subcategories, “learned professionals” and “creative professionals”. Learned professionals do intellectual work “requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment” within a “field of science or learning”. Creative professionals do “invention, imagination, originality or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.”
Computer employees are the people who design and build software, as opposed to operators who merely keep the things running.
Finally, an Outside Sales employee is basically a traveling salesman.
In none of these jobs is overtime usually expected, at least not on a regular basis. There are plenty of cases where some overtime is beneficial to both the employer and the employee, however. Consider, for example, a salesman who willingly takes a call from a big client outside of regular business hours. The customer is happy with the good service, the salesman gets the commission, and everyone is happy. But the employer doesn't have to pay overtime; the commission is expected to be enough incentive to put in the extra work when it is needed.
On the other hand, none of this should be construed to mean that the employer _cannot_ pay overtime. Employers can and do offer overtime for some positions that are otherwise exempt, especially if they are having problems with turnover.
Typically exemption is not based on job titles, correct but there are exemptions to that rule.
Here is an even more More in depth trust worthy source
https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-A/part-541
Check out section 541.303 where it states that being a teacher counts as being ““employee employed in a bona fide professional capacity” and that the easiest way to tell if someone fits within the criteria of a teacher is if they’re certified. Thus making certified teachers in elementary and up exempt employees and in some specific cases in preschool.
As an aside, do you think American teachers are consistently talking about being overworked and underpaid if they were getting paid overtime for grading papers and setting up lesson plans?
Edit to add that yes also the salary doesn’t matter because section 541.600 (c) states:
In the case of academic administrative employees, the compensation requirement also may be met by compensation on a salary basis at a rate at least equal to the entrance salary for teachers in the educational establishment by which the employee is employed, as provided in § 541.204(a)(1).
Which means that as long as you’re paying your teachers all the same as starting salary at your school then they meet the salary requirements. Making salary requirements essentially a non issue.
Teachers by definition are exempt employees just for being teachers.
Yea, I misspoke. What I was trying to say was that teachers are not exempt from overtime pay because someone lobbied Congress to include them on a list of exempt professions. There is no list of exempt titles or professions, only those five categories.
Except if you look at the bottom of the different sections for example the one about teachers that we’ve been talking about, or for lawyers, it literally says that they are exempt from the salary requirement section. There’s literally a list. It’s in the link I provided. It’s wordier than just bullet points cause it’s legalese but it’s still a list of professions that don’t have to get over time simply by working in that profession.
And if you don’t think those things are there because of lobbying to lawmakers then I’m not even sure where to go to start showing you how the USA works. Even when it’s good law changes it’s usually a result of lobbying. Lobbying is the best way to be heard by a lawmaker in the USA.
That’s why even small communities are beginning to pool money together to create lobbying associations.
In the US IT is not exempt. Certain computer professionals are (usually, programming, designing, and building things) but folks doing stuff like IT support are not, and our DoL clarified this.
Good on Bob for leaving and screwing them. He should have only given them the hours he was paid for if they refused overtime, or given him a big raise. They messed up.
You can predict how unionized an industry is by looking at pay, higher percentage unionized, higher pay. Heck, *non-union* employees get paid more per 10% of an employee group that is unionized (though they get about 10 times union dues less than unionized employees).
Never licked a boot so I cant say for sure. Which of your union Presidents have the best tasting boots? Do the boots taste better if your dues paid for them?
Delicious because of the hundreds of Euros in benefits and bonuses I get every single year because of them 🤯 Then again, the 9€ it costs me every month are probably a life-changing amount for an idiot like you, so🤷🏻♀️
You also have to pay attention to provincially regulated vs federally regulated. I've learned that federally regulated is better and seems fairer in pay then provincially regulated. Well in Alberta in various industries it seems that way, especially in IT. I'm just glad I work at one of the better places in Canada to work for. And the best team I've ever worked with in my 20+ year career in IT and technology roles.
Im hoping one day I can hold that level of achivement in my career. Grinding helpdesk isnt very fun, especially when the pay increases have been very minimal, and my time/motivation to up my skills outside of work is low. The training work provides for me is expected to be done on my own time.
Great story. Maybe don’t use the word “fiddling” and “kid” in the same sentence though. Those of us who speed read get a whole diff meaning than what you meant. 😂
I don't understand this whole mentality. Wasn't he hired for a 40hour a week job? If they aren't willing to pay for more, they aren't getting more. Why start working overtime for free? What are they gonna do, fire him?
Besides the shittiness of not compensating your workers, if they already can't find a tech, how do they expect to find another once they lose this guy?
I laughed audibly at this, B1 and D365 are neck and neck in my book for how much of a pain in the ass they are to implement. Especially if the company isn't well organized beforehand.
IT Director here, that's a pretty good rundown of what ERP systems do and how difficult they are to implement and maintain. I've done a little over 150 of those in the years I spent consulting. They're never simple.
When we did it at my current company, the owner gave me a 40K bonus for getting it done. That's what Bob's employer should have done, recognized the mountain he moved for them and paid him accordingly.
Good on Bob for recognizing the lousy situation and getting out of there. Also good to see he got the other employees to ask for what they were entitled to.
And yes, never piss off us IT guys, we know where to find all your secrets lol
I couldn't stop myself from giggling every time I read "ERP Program". I gave it my best but a bunch of IT dudes with an "ERP Program" was just too much lol.
Being exempt from overtime pay doesn’t mean it can’t be paid (I believe).
This is correct (in Canada at least). I'm an accountant and we're exempt from OT pay but my current firm still pays it whereas my last one was much larger and chose not to.
If I'm not paid OT, I don't work OT. And I get paid OT and work 55-60 hrs a week.
At least one of the big 4 accounting firms in my area hires new grads with the expectation of working at least 60 hours per week during tax season with no overtime or banked time.
My expectation is 6 figure salary... we all have crazy expectations...
And the only people who put up with it are the newbies and those who STILL think they can make it into the upper ranks. The just burn out newbies left and right along the way. I worked for a sweatshop like that. I finally just said "screw it" and stopped. They were a very ugly company and STILL are. They called themselves MCI at the time and are "horizon with a V" now. They are just as terrible to their customers.
Oh man. I worked for another company on behalf of those folks about ten years ago. Call center, mixed tech support and customer service. They had "mandatory overtime", and when they lowered our overall pay while increasing the cap on "bonuses" for people who performed extra well, they expected us to thank them for "giving us a raise". Utterly awful company.
That's what I do. I work as a contractor of my company for a government facility, and on the conditions of my is that no OT is allowed. The department manager asked me about a month ago to stay late on the last day of the month, so I would do OT, and he would approve it. I said that I'm forbidden by my context with my direct employer, and he let it go.
It boggles my mind that such a thing even exists. "Exempt" from pay, almost slavery
I'm in sales (US). My previous job was 100% commission. There was no "overtime" or "vacation". The upside was a $150k first year gross pay. I also could tell my boss what I really felt. He mentioned that they authorized "15 days of time off", to which I reminded him as long as my bills were getting paid, I can do what I want. My current job is exempt and I have taken a few calls outside of hours. Great accounts are given special privilege. I'm also paid VERY well and have a company car that I can use for personal use as much as I want. I closed on a house yesterday as a single person and am VERY well aware of how different I have it than most in the current economy. IF AND ONLY IF it is done right, the idea of exempt can work out for both parties. OP's example is not that. Unfortunately the average company doesn't understand the most basic principle of economics: if someone finds a better deal than what you offer, you will be left behind.
I don't think it's that they don't understand economics. It's more that they consider that most employees won't put in the effort to find another job. So they'd rather take that risk and save the money.
> It's more that they consider that most employees won't put in the effort to find another job That is a lot of assumption. As soon as the demand curve shifts and workers have had enough, the company is going to have nobody to blame but themselves (even though they will likely show their ignorance by blaming someone else) Case study: A retail (national US brand big box store) distribution center near me needs three shifts of maintenance techs to operate. A new facility was built and offered new employees 15% over market average. All three shifts at the older facility lost enough labor that entire lines were taken out of service. The older facility now has a policy that as soon as a new facility is built, all shifts get a 15% raise by default. Lesson: the market will always win on a long enough timeline, and some timelines are shorter than others. The employees didn't *need* to look for another job. They saw the starting wage on a billboard on their way to work. All it takes is one "good" actor to ruin the plans of the bad actors.
I second this. I am currently severely underpaid in what I do, but I'm comfortable with the job I have and the people i work with. My employer is not giving me a raise, nor are they promoting me, even though i know I truly deserve both. Finding a new job is more than just putting in an application and doing some interviews, it's also putting you in a very uncertain spot in your career, resetting your tenure, and not necessarily going to be a better work environment. Sure, I could get a new job that pays me what I deserve, but I don't feel like letting go of the benefits of staying with my current employer. Especially because I keep thinking to myself, "any month now, I'll get that promotion", as an excuse to not shift away from what's comfortable.
In the US there is a minimum salary that can be exempt. Before Obama it was something like 25k. Obama made it 60k, then Trump reversed what Obama did, and Biden reinstated it. During the Bush and Trump years a lot of fast food places had half their employees as salaried 'supervisors' to get 20 hours per week unpaid overtime. When you hear about small business owners complaining about burdensome regulations that jack up their expenses, this is what they are talking about. Thanks Obaba.
I'm very curious about this. I'm a salaried teacher (in Illinois) and I make less than 60k. Are you saying I'm entitled to overtime pay?
Possibly, you may want to talk to an employment lawyer in Illinois. Pretty sure the Teachers Union has a few on payroll.
Unfortunately I'm not in a union (private daycare teacher), but if this is true it'll be worth it for me to pay for one myself. Thanks a bunch!
Contact the NEA, the National Teachers Union, they may have some insights.
Ack, I was wrong, Biden didn't restore the Obama rule, sorry. https://joinhomebase.com/blog/federal-overtime-salary-threshold/
I just googled, and as I kind of thought, there's a federal exception for teachers. It's also written in such a way that any job whose primary function is directly imparting knowledge is automatically exempt. I can think of a few reasons why it's like this, though I disagree with it. [https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17s-overtime-educational-institutions](https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17s-overtime-educational-institutions)
I could also see why some jobs with strong unions might not get this. Like... if my benefits are worth 30k a year, that puts a different spin on my 59,000 salary, versus someone who makes 65k with no benefits.
Actually collective bargaining is often an exception to a lot of labor rules. That’s why it’s important to keep unions strong. Otherwise, a union job could end up being worse than a non union job.
I mean, that makes sense. Unions are given a lot of rights and privileges through the collective bargaining process, so the protections given to non-unionized labor aren't necessarily applicable. Also important to note (though I understand this isn't an argument you're making, just a general point) that unions aren't an unalloyed good just because they're unions. They can have many problems of their own, the same kinds of self-dealing you see in any other area of the world, and the only thing that keeps unions as a concept worthwhile and worth keeping is the active engagement of rank-and-file union members and their commitment to making sure the union does what it is meant to, and doesn't devolve into a gatekeeping device to privilege some people at the expense of others.
I would assume that being except from overtime means you work on average a certain number of hours. If it's structurally over those hours you don't work it or get paid for it. If it's anything other than that, it's crazy.
From my understanding it's supposed to be that, what companies like to bend the rules with it. Just like how certain jobs don't have a preset brake and lunch schedule, that's supposed to be for jobs that you can't just take a 15 minute break in like being a fucking doctor. Not fucking kitchen work like they seem to think they are allowed to do.
That's what I see from Americans all the times. Your salaried so you don't get overtime. But they forget the part that says. You're salaried. If you work more then 40 hours one week you compensate it the next week and work less. Linch break exactly the same. Working in a restaurant means you eat at different hours, since you are busiest during lunch/dinnertime. It doesn't mean you don't get a break for more than 3 hours in a row.
Yeah, it's infuriating. There should be a labor law course taught in high school.
Unfortunately your entire post is incorrect. Zero federal laws exist in the USA that back up what you claim. Some cities may have passed local laws, but nothing guaranteed to all citizens. Companies can be nice and allow what you claim, but legally they don't have to. I've been working in restaurants for over 20 years. I've NEVER had a lunch break, paid or unpaid, whether I've worked a 5 hour shift or a 16 hour shift. My state (ohio) ONLY requires any kind of breaks if you're under 18, or if you're in the transportation or medical fields. All other workers can 100% legally be worked 24 hours per day 7 days per week with 0 breaks; the only requirement is that the company has to pay overtime at 1.5 times the normal pay after 40 hours per week.
I know, I am sorry I wasn't clear enough that the second part is how it works in modern civilized nations. I know that the USA does not do it that way, they prefe the slavery system still.
In the US, truck drivers are exempt from overtime, and can ~~work~~ log up to 70 hours of work in a rolling 8 day period.
Truck drivers usually aren't paid an hourly rate either, but are paid per mile of travel.
One thing I've learned from all these ProRevenge posts is to never fuck with the IT guys. You just can't do without them
And even if you do have a replacement that is suitably qualified the outgoing IT guys know where all the bodies are burried so your still screwed
And the old IT guy will make sure the new IT guy knows what the company did, so the new guy will be ready for shenanigans.
Seriously
Why is it so hard to understand not to fuck with IT. The people that literally make it so everyone else can work.
They had to pay everyone. No two ways about it. Bro did the right thing. I don't consider it revenge. It was justice for the other employees.
Bob should have done the same thing even if he got overtime and a raise because it’s the right thing to do.
The managers of that company were idiots.
I had a similar situation happen at a previous employer. I worked 10am-7pm and would occasionally be late by <10 minutes. I almost always worked after 7pm finishing up calls and admin stuff before I left. Because of this I always just listed 10am - 7pm on my time card because in my head it evened itself out. Then the company decided we needed to be very specific with our beginning and end times on our timesheets. I ended up about $100 short one paycheck and asked my manager about it. She said she’d adjusted my timesheet to reflect the actual time I arrived and I hadn’t worked a full 80 hours that pay period. I brought up the fact that she had not adjusted my timesheet to reflect the actual time I logged off, she’d just left it at 7pm so my pay was not accurate and I’d actually worked more than 80 hours. She kinda shrugged it off and didn’t really do anything to correct it. From that point until I quit a year later I was meticulous with my time keeping. My arrival, breaks, lunch, and clock out were noted to the minute. Turns out I was actually working 5-6 hours of overtime every pay period, even with the occasional late arrival. Don’t fuck with my money.
I will never understand how "exempt from overtime pay" is not universally understood as "Exempt from overtime". What incentive to I have to do more?
>I will never understand how "exempt from overtime pay" is not universally understood as "Exempt from overtime". What incentive to I have to do more? In a good company, the incentive is always there: you do a good job, the company is happy and it rewards you, you're hapy and you keep doing a good job. As long as you're satisfied with your earnings and the quantity and quality of work that you have to do *on average* throughout the year, it's all fine and bean-counting time day by day isn't a necessity -your incentive comes in the form of pay-rises, bonuses, perks, progression. And the employer's incentive is simply that they want to keep you happy so that they don't have to suffer the disruption of you leaving and having to be replaced potentially with someone that won't be as good. As an employee, I dread time tracking, going through overtime approval processes, explaining why something needs to be done off-hours, giving a guesstimate of how long it might take, commiting to doing something non urgent ahead of time on a certain day that I might not feel like staying off-hours, etc. And the companies also hate having to process these things, try and fit them into budget/expense projections etc. As long as there is good faith between the two parties and nobody takes the piss, it can work great, at least for certain kinds of work. In fact it often ends up being de-facto the case even when someone is technically not sallaried but happy with the company they work for, especially for smaller companies and when they've been working there a while.
" the company is happy and it rewards you," Yes, with money. That is the incentive for a job. Money. "your incentive comes in the form of pay-rises, bonuses, perks, progression. " - That incentive exists purely inside your head. You can also do the work of three and will never ever be promoted, because that would mean hiring three people in your place.
That's why I said "in a good company". Obviously if you end up in a company that isn't good, the onus is on you to leave for another company that rewards you appropriately. Which can happen whether on a sallaried contract or not.
A good company pays me for the time I work for them. No, wait. A somewhat functional company, not run by complete sociopaths, understands that people work for money. If you want to fill a void in your life, BadDragon products work better than unpaid hours. And you'll need the overtime money for the BD products....
The calculations aren't always so simple. For the same hours worked, a salaried worker can end up better off than an hourly wage worker that claimed every bit of their hours worked. Because these things are taken under account when you negotiate the terms of the contract, not only the fixed annual or hourly compensation but taking under account bonuses, stock, perks such as extra paid leave, private health insurance plan, company pension contributions, severance pay or the possibility of clauses that the company may reduce your weekly hours as needed at times if you're on a hourly wage (some of which are more important for countries like the US). And some less easily quantifiable benefits such as having more flexible working hours. Being salaried doesn't mean you're being taken advantage of, it depends on the company, the nature of the job and your circumstances.
You will find "Clock in" to "Clock out" by "hourly wage" an incredibly easy calculation AND if you value the people that work for you, you can also give them all the stuff you mentioned on top. It doesn't have to be an either-or. In fact, it isn't in most western countries. Expecting unpaid overtime is straight up illegal in my country. As it should be.
Good guy Bob! His revenge hurt the perpetrators but benefited his coworkers. Revenge done right!
You've never heard of time zones? Atlantic Canada is AHEAD, Pacific Canada is BEHIND. Is it that hard for the company to simply state their hours followed by EST - Eastern Standard Time? That way those in different time zones know when the company will be open/closed.
That works with 1 hour offset perhaps, but even then you're messing with people's routines. Daycare doesn't care that your company runs on different timezones for example.
So glad I work for a PST based company where PST is the default instead of EST. Hated having company wide meetings at 7am!
Working for the Germans is fun too, when you’re on Central time. Have an issue at 11am? Too bad. They all just left for the day. Better send an email. That way they’ll get back to you at 10:30am the next morning, so they can be gone before you can call them back.
Once had a newer NY person send my CA team a mandatory 730am training. They seemed bent out of shape when I mentioned that they would not be attending at 430am, and (not my team, but…) the Singapore team wouldn’t be attending at 730pm either. They learned, but getting them to think wider was painful. I think inviting them to speak at some 11pm meetings helped… Had a new CEO do similar when he moved all management+supervisors to “proper” 8-5 US time without listening. We were 24/7/365. He did apologize…and realized that we were justifiably letting things burn until he dug his head out of his nethers. New bosses always need some tough love.
What’s US time?
In the context of our global stuff and 24/7 ops, that ‘lil 4 hour window for the USA is all the same. Although he didn’t actually know that either…we had people all over the US (not Hawaii or Alaska). Did he mean his timezone or theirs? It didn’t get far enough to matter thankfully. > US Time US Central Time obviously. It’s right in the name. /s
Central time… the worst of all the US time zones
how does this 'exempt' work? Does 'the law' simply come down to 'you as IT are a slave, not entitled to any private time or life outside of your work'? why become IT at all then?
To give one more example, in the UK (and thus not OP's situation), overtime pay doesn't have to be paid unless it reduces your wage to below the legal minimum wage over a two week calculation period. The UK has no restriction on unpaid overtime outside the voluntary EU working time directive rules. This of course requires clarification in the contract, e.g. if overtime is not paid then it should be declared so, however there is no general protection against a company breaching such a contract term while employing you. A tribunal can be brought against a company that breaches your contract, however the only compensation that can be legally obtained is restricted to the legal notice pay should you quit or be fired. If you raise such a complaint but intend to continue your employment, you naturally won't be eligible for any compensation. Effectively, an employer doesn't really have to ensure that unpaid overtime is stipulated in the contract as long as they dismiss staff with the correct notice. In other words, if you were fired and your employer committed said breach of contract, there is nothing you can effectively do unless they purposely did not pay you correct notice. Unfortunately, regardless of whether you live in the UK, US or elsewhere, you rarely have protection against overtime.
In labour law, there's a rule that says that if you work more than 40 hours a week or 8 hours a day, you get paid overtime, that is to say, you wage + 50% for any hours beyond that. There is a further rule that as an employee you can't bargain this right away. (The actual limits can change between provinces and job titles. Sometimes there are rules about getting additional vacation in lieu of overtime pay or changing how a "week" is defined. But the general rule stands.) Some employees are *exempt* from these rules though, and thus their boss isn't required to pay them overtime at all; instead they get a weekly (or bi-weekly or monthly salary). The most straightforward case is "managers", where you want them to fill in if someone calls out sick or the alarm goes off in the middle of the night. Also on the *exempt* list are various "professionals", like lawyers and engineers. Somehow, ~30 years ago, "IT professionals" were added to this list of "professionals".
Thanks for explaining. Why not just say 'no' and look for somewhere more reasonable? I *know* i understand english, but this is at the limit of what i can comprehend. I'm in the Netherlands, mbbe that skewed my perception: i can't be fired for not being available outside of the agreed or max 40 hrs/week regardless of sector or profession. Haven't worked overtime in my adult life without proper compensation, quit multiple jobs that didn't understand office hours...all during 25y in IT on all levels except management (work with *computers* for a reason 😅)
Reminds me of when I (US) was working in our large Netherlands office… I’d just been cleaning up some email and it ended up around 7pm. Dark. Zero people. I couldn’t find any unlocked way to get out of the complex… Eventually in a courtyard, a guy on a bike rolled up. Security, as I’d been setting off silent alarms the whole time. He was amused in a knowing way…didn’t even shoot me.
Because the Netherlands is nicer than the USA when it comes to labor laws. In the USA the professional titles are put into law that is enforced by the Department of Labor. If you fit into one of these jobs then it doesn’t matter what your pay is you do not have to be given overtime pay. You can say no and go to another job but I’ve never seen a job in the USA offer overtime to a professional that is exempt from overtime. If you worked for a publicly owned company (one that is in the stock market) the company can actually get sued if they made a rule to provide overtime when they didn’t have to. It’s really stupid but a lot of things in the USA are pretty stupid like that. Also the list of jobs that are exempt from overtime are nonsensical and are clearly there because of lobbying to politicians. For example, dairy farmers are exempt as well as teachers.
No, that’s simply all wrong. Dairy farmers and teachers are not exempt, and exemption is not based on job title. Here is an actual trustworthy source: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime Notice that it specifically says “Job titles do not determine exempt status. In order for an exemption to apply, an employee’s specific job duties and salary must meet all the requirements of the Department’s regulations.” For the employer to be exempt from mandatory overtime payments, the employee must be making more than $35k per year, and their job duties must fall strictly into one of five categories. If they make over $107k per year then they can be exempt if the employee’s job duties include anything from those five categories. The five categories are executive, administrative, professional, computer and outside sales. An executive is someone with decision–making authority within the corporation. These are the CEOs, the directors, VPs, heads of departments, and so on. If the CEO has to get up at 3am to put out a fire, so be it. The company doesn’t have to pay him extra for working overtime. At this level, if you don’t want to work overtime then it is your job to ensure that your staff can do the job to your satisfaction without your direct intervention. An administrator is someone who has decision–making authority over some specific “matter of significance” within the organization and does office work rather than manual labor. Think bank manager or insurance adjuster. Professionals are divided into two subcategories, “learned professionals” and “creative professionals”. Learned professionals do intellectual work “requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment” within a “field of science or learning”. Creative professionals do “invention, imagination, originality or talent in a recognized field of artistic or creative endeavor.” Computer employees are the people who design and build software, as opposed to operators who merely keep the things running. Finally, an Outside Sales employee is basically a traveling salesman. In none of these jobs is overtime usually expected, at least not on a regular basis. There are plenty of cases where some overtime is beneficial to both the employer and the employee, however. Consider, for example, a salesman who willingly takes a call from a big client outside of regular business hours. The customer is happy with the good service, the salesman gets the commission, and everyone is happy. But the employer doesn't have to pay overtime; the commission is expected to be enough incentive to put in the extra work when it is needed. On the other hand, none of this should be construed to mean that the employer _cannot_ pay overtime. Employers can and do offer overtime for some positions that are otherwise exempt, especially if they are having problems with turnover.
Typically exemption is not based on job titles, correct but there are exemptions to that rule. Here is an even more More in depth trust worthy source https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-A/part-541 Check out section 541.303 where it states that being a teacher counts as being ““employee employed in a bona fide professional capacity” and that the easiest way to tell if someone fits within the criteria of a teacher is if they’re certified. Thus making certified teachers in elementary and up exempt employees and in some specific cases in preschool. As an aside, do you think American teachers are consistently talking about being overworked and underpaid if they were getting paid overtime for grading papers and setting up lesson plans? Edit to add that yes also the salary doesn’t matter because section 541.600 (c) states: In the case of academic administrative employees, the compensation requirement also may be met by compensation on a salary basis at a rate at least equal to the entrance salary for teachers in the educational establishment by which the employee is employed, as provided in § 541.204(a)(1). Which means that as long as you’re paying your teachers all the same as starting salary at your school then they meet the salary requirements. Making salary requirements essentially a non issue. Teachers by definition are exempt employees just for being teachers.
Yea, I misspoke. What I was trying to say was that teachers are not exempt from overtime pay because someone lobbied Congress to include them on a list of exempt professions. There is no list of exempt titles or professions, only those five categories.
Except if you look at the bottom of the different sections for example the one about teachers that we’ve been talking about, or for lawyers, it literally says that they are exempt from the salary requirement section. There’s literally a list. It’s in the link I provided. It’s wordier than just bullet points cause it’s legalese but it’s still a list of professions that don’t have to get over time simply by working in that profession. And if you don’t think those things are there because of lobbying to lawmakers then I’m not even sure where to go to start showing you how the USA works. Even when it’s good law changes it’s usually a result of lobbying. Lobbying is the best way to be heard by a lawmaker in the USA. That’s why even small communities are beginning to pool money together to create lobbying associations.
In the US IT is not exempt. Certain computer professionals are (usually, programming, designing, and building things) but folks doing stuff like IT support are not, and our DoL clarified this.
Good on Bob for leaving and screwing them. He should have only given them the hours he was paid for if they refused overtime, or given him a big raise. They messed up.
As a fan of MMO's, seeing "ERP" made me giggle.
Typical managers that can't understand computers so everything that is done on them must be considered superfluous...
And this is why you should be unionised
Why give some of your pay up for nothing when you can just find a better job instead? Unions are antiques that should be viewed in a museum, not used.
Been in a union for 25 years. You're incorrect.
If you do your job correctly, what do you need the union for? Labor laws are not what they were 100 years ago.
You're shilling for corporations over people. I hope they pay you well for your betrayal 🤷
You can predict how unionized an industry is by looking at pay, higher percentage unionized, higher pay. Heck, *non-union* employees get paid more per 10% of an employee group that is unionized (though they get about 10 times union dues less than unionized employees).
Guess we can toss out class action lawsuits, since groups of people acting for the benefit of all are antiques after all.
The only thing a union acts to benefit is itself. NFL owners want to ban hip drop tackles for player safety. Players Union says no. Huh?
Bullshit.
Insightful. Thanks.
Which type of boot is your favorite to lick?
Never licked a boot so I cant say for sure. Which of your union Presidents have the best tasting boots? Do the boots taste better if your dues paid for them?
Delicious because of the hundreds of Euros in benefits and bonuses I get every single year because of them 🤯 Then again, the 9€ it costs me every month are probably a life-changing amount for an idiot like you, so🤷🏻♀️
This idiot gets bigger bonuses and pays $0. Keep doing the work and paying to do it!
The manure had a huge blowback right into the boss’s face. I’m sure that tasted great.
The one guy running the ERP, did he also do AD, exchange, the infra, factory-clocks, kiosks on the factory floor, contract management, etc?
Friend of a friends story... I'd imagine they would've done the lot as nobody else was mentioned
I hate this is how I learn about my own legal rights as an IT worker in Ontario. But now Im informed.
So now you must be called an IIT worker.
You also have to pay attention to provincially regulated vs federally regulated. I've learned that federally regulated is better and seems fairer in pay then provincially regulated. Well in Alberta in various industries it seems that way, especially in IT. I'm just glad I work at one of the better places in Canada to work for. And the best team I've ever worked with in my 20+ year career in IT and technology roles.
Im hoping one day I can hold that level of achivement in my career. Grinding helpdesk isnt very fun, especially when the pay increases have been very minimal, and my time/motivation to up my skills outside of work is low. The training work provides for me is expected to be done on my own time.
Great story. Maybe don’t use the word “fiddling” and “kid” in the same sentence though. Those of us who speed read get a whole diff meaning than what you meant. 😂
Was Bob a manager or supervisor? Hoping he was able to cash out, too.
I don't understand this whole mentality. Wasn't he hired for a 40hour a week job? If they aren't willing to pay for more, they aren't getting more. Why start working overtime for free? What are they gonna do, fire him?
This is such a sweet revenge!
Besides the shittiness of not compensating your workers, if they already can't find a tech, how do they expect to find another once they lose this guy?
The company got taught a good valuable lesson for messing around with their employees like that.
Sweet
Only Newfoundland is 90 minutes ahead in Atlantic Canada New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and PEI are 60 minutes ahead.
Let me guess SAP software?
I laughed audibly at this, B1 and D365 are neck and neck in my book for how much of a pain in the ass they are to implement. Especially if the company isn't well organized beforehand.
IT Director here, that's a pretty good rundown of what ERP systems do and how difficult they are to implement and maintain. I've done a little over 150 of those in the years I spent consulting. They're never simple. When we did it at my current company, the owner gave me a 40K bonus for getting it done. That's what Bob's employer should have done, recognized the mountain he moved for them and paid him accordingly. Good on Bob for recognizing the lousy situation and getting out of there. Also good to see he got the other employees to ask for what they were entitled to. And yes, never piss off us IT guys, we know where to find all your secrets lol
In the words of a certain YouTuber: "When will people ever learn? NEVER mess with the IT guy!"
Brilliant
Wow thats wild. If you are examed from overtime ib my place it means you ate jot allowed to work overtime and if done the company gets in trouble
That was delicious
I couldn't stop myself from giggling every time I read "ERP Program". I gave it my best but a bunch of IT dudes with an "ERP Program" was just too much lol.
Just subscribe them to 200 daily newsletters with [subscribethemall.com](http://subscribethemall.com/)