[HN Gopher] Companies save billions of dollars by giving employe...
___________________________________________________________________
Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees fake
"manager" titles
Author : shubaduba
Score : 227 points
Date : 2023-02-03 14:41 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cbsnews.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cbsnews.com)
| devnull3 wrote:
| Some of these companies have "code-of-ethics" document which is
| mandatory for every employee to read. I had to read & acknowledge
| as a freshman software engineer at a firm which abused visa-on-
| arrival for work purposes.
|
| The sheer hypocrisy is mind-blowing!
| swader999 wrote:
| Unlimited time off is another gem they use.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| Unlimited is such an absurd word. It should be "Flexible". It
| should be we will NOT fire you if you take 23.5 days instead of
| the ideal number of 22. Also, if you take 18 that is not a
| problem either.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It's not "flexible" either. It's "non-accrued". The only
| reason it's non-accrued is so that the company doesn't have
| to pay you left over PTO when you leave the company and gets
| it off their books. Everything else is a euphemism to make
| employees feel good about getting fewer benefits.
|
| You could have this flexibility with accrued PTO. I've
| previously given employees additional, off-the-books time off
| because they needed and deserved it and when we all got laid
| off they still got the remaining PTO paid out.
|
| Edit: add section on flexible alternative
| gitfan86 wrote:
| I don't want accrued benefits. That means that someone owes
| me 1000s of dollars and I cannot have that debt honored
| unless I quit my job?
|
| I generally try to work at places that value my
| contributions but do not try to micromanage me. If I
| want/need to take time off, I do. If at some point I'm
| taking off so much time that they no longer feel that I'm
| contributing enough to the company, then fine they can let
| me go.
| ska wrote:
| One hint is that you only see this in jurisdictions without
| strong labor laws around PTO. Some places, you have to give
| at least X weeks accrued a year for all full time employees
| (might be laddered by tenure) and you _have_ to allow them
| at least Y continuous days /weeks per year; they may also
| have to to spend all of their accrued time within a short-
| ish window (limited rollover).
|
| In this sort of environment, I've never seen a company
| claim "unlimited".
| disgruntledphd2 wrote:
| Intercom are headquartered in Ireland, and have unlimited
| PTO. When I interviewed with them, the recruiter said she
| averaged about 4 weeks a year (which is below the legal
| minimum). You do have to take the leave within the first
| quarter if the year following.
| ska wrote:
| > he recruiter said she averaged about 4 weeks a year
| (which is below the legal minimum)
|
| how does that work?
| jdmichal wrote:
| My second job, I agreed on a start date having forgotten
| that I had a week-long cruise booked for the very next
| week. It had been arranged a year or so before by a friend
| and just was not on my mind. So I started week 3 of that
| job with a -40 hour PTO balance.
|
| Companies have a lot of flexibility in deciding how the
| accruals work. But, as you said, the important part is that
| when it accrues, at that point it's a legally-obligated
| right for you to either receive that time or be paid for
| it.
| m348e912 wrote:
| Unlimited time off would be a better idea if the company could
| define a reasonable minimum amount of time you must take off
| during the year. Then there is no guilt or coercion involved.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| Joseph Turner White: "What's an associate producer credit?"
|
| Bill Smith: "It's what you give to your secretary instead of a
| raise." [1]
|
| 1. "State and Main", by David Mamet
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jLudeYtBqFg
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I've long thought that companies should have mandatory hours
| reporting and limits on Salary positions. That is they must
| collect the actual hours worked by people of that title in their
| company, and report it to candidates.
|
| $250K for 35hrs a week at a casual company vs $375K at a 996
| ByteDance, I know which side of that equation I'd choose.
| nixgeek wrote:
| I've noticed that in larger technology companies there has also
| been a trend towards getting a "Manager" title but leading a team
| of 1-2 people. Maybe there will be intent to grow this to 3-4
| people or more in future years, but that hinders giving others a
| title and their own small team (which can be considered career
| progression).
|
| Then you might see another leader (Manager of Managers, or "MoM")
| who has 5 of these small-team managers, a different title, but a
| total organization size of 10-15 people.
|
| This feels like a shift from a generation ago when the bigger
| technology companies wanted flatter organizations and most
| managers would have teams of 8-12 people, the MoM roles might be
| 50-80 people, and beyond that executive roles with 100s of
| people.
| NegativeK wrote:
| After seeing my first job promote devs working solo to
| "director", I learned that titles mean absolutely nothing, or
| less than nothing since they're often a distraction.
|
| You can go become a senior or lead developer in some companies
| with only two years of experience, but the head of the local
| very large international airport is a director.
| kevstev wrote:
| I got stuck in this trap for a bit at my last job. I was called
| a "manager" and expected to do all of the managerial bits, but
| only had 2 others on my team that were very junior. Yet I was
| still expected to take on a full IC load, yet also deal with
| all the upwards reporting stuff, and I had to "find the
| resources" for all the forced work that was being put on us,
| and there was tons of it- datacenter moves, all kinds of
| transparent changes that were happening beneath us but still
| needed someone to "check out" on the weekends to ensure things
| weren't broken, etc. And of course any outage that happened, my
| name was front and center, but big successes, it was in
| there... somewhere. This was during covid, and headcount was
| always "about to be approved" but Covid. But this. But that...
|
| Never again will I fall into that trap.
| jrockway wrote:
| I don't really have a problem with this. The best organizations
| lean into the fact that an organization needs to do more than
| just make a product, they also need to help their employees
| "grow" in their career. For those interested in the management
| track, starting small with a small "blast radius" makes a lot
| of sense. The organization isn't saying that having managers
| for every 2 people is the best way to allocate management
| resources, it's saying that it's the best way to train new
| managers.
| nixgeek wrote:
| No disagreement on blast radius and the point on training new
| managers, instead what I find less logical is when a 50+
| person organization has 25-30% of people as manager roles,
| meaning this isn't an exceptional or temporary situation
| (i.e. training one or a small number of new managers), it's
| actually a core part of organizational design.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| It's done like this bc leadership at those companies want
| to have certain number of directors reporting to them (for
| resume padding purposes). The directors then need sr
| manager reports who in turn need multiple manager reports,
| etc. Pretty sure it has nothing to do with concern for low
| level employees' careers as up and coming managers
| ThinkingGuy wrote:
| A very large company I worked for did something similar..
|
| They ran a call center for merchant credit cards. Every associate
| on the floor had the title of "account manager." That way, when a
| customer whose request for a credit limit increase was declined
| or who had some other complaint asked to "speak to a manger," the
| low-wage associate could reply "Sir/Ma'am, I AM a manager."
| WestCoastJustin wrote:
| You also need to factor in the size of the company. A VP is a
| very different thing at a Startup vs Amazon.
| grecy wrote:
| I worked in IT for a large Telco, as an "Application Manager". I
| managed nobody and was responsible for a few big systems (but not
| accountable, an important distinction)
|
| Eventually getting to know the union rep it was widely accepted
| they had added "Manager" to the title of every salaried employee
| so they didn't have to pay overtime, could call you in after
| hours, etc.
|
| It made us smile when even 18 year old call centre people had
| "Manager" in their title on their first day at their first job.
| PM_me_your_math wrote:
| The key take-away here is to know what you're doing. Schools
| don't teach this stuff. High school doesn't teach personal
| finance to a necessary degree, nor do they teach kids the
| realities of both the job market and the impact & traps of a
| college education. They've been geared themselves to feed the
| college industry with fresh victims and leave students with
| "passion" ...a passion that cannot pay the bills. We need a
| fundamental shift from college tracks to productivity tracks.
| Teach kids how to manage money, file taxes, start businesses,
| tinker, invent, start trade businesses, and bring back shop
| class. Dump the idea that you need a college degree to be
| successful, you don't, unless you are committed to entering a
| profession like medical, law, or applied sciences. The failings
| of today are the result of the shortcomings and bad ideas of 20 -
| 40 years ago. The amazing part is that this can be fixed in a
| single generation with the right leadership, will, and plan;
| which mind you has already been written and executed successfully
| but 70 years ago.
| throwaway181747 wrote:
| Much like how coders like to call themselves "engineers" - a term
| that has actual accreditation and certifications attached to it,
| but somehow not in the computer science space, weird.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| I always call myself a software engineer, hoping to bait
| someone like you so I can reveal I actually do have an
| engineering degree.
| ddulaney wrote:
| Eh, it's pretty nuanced. Certification, rigor, and lots of
| other things that software folks associate with "real"
| engineering aren't actually that different between software and
| traditional engineering projects.
|
| I recommend checking out Hillel Wayne's series where he
| interviews what he calls "crossovers", people that worked both
| in software and in traditional engineering:
| https://www.hillelwayne.com/post/we-are-not-special/
| throwaway181747 wrote:
| Thank you for the earnest reply to my snarky comment. I'll
| check out that series!
| qualudeheart wrote:
| Inflation for everything.
| jcadam wrote:
| I've been a "Senior Engineer" for over 10 years now.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I work on internal web applications at a company who sells a
| physical product (read: not a tech company). I started the
| job when I was in my late 20s and my title was "Senior
| Something-or-other". Around the time I started, I told that
| to someone who works outside IT and their immediate response
| was, "You don't look very senior."
|
| Yeah, tell me about it.
| [deleted]
| qualudeheart wrote:
| What do those apps do?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| Nothing special; they're just interfaces for managing
| internal data.
| jcadam wrote:
| Was once a senior engineer at a small-ish office of a fairly
| large company. We had a particularly high-strung junior engineer
| that was prone to throwing fits if he didn't get his way.
|
| Apparently, one day, he threatened to quit for another offer. He
| was placated with some trivial pay increase and promotion to lead
| engineer (essentially leap-frogging the other seniors in the
| office in title - but not in pay).
|
| Except no announcement was made; I had no idea he'd been
| promoted. One day he walks into my office and starts telling me I
| need to redesign some module using XYZ Design pattern.
|
| "Nope, don't think so - that would be a pointless and unnecessary
| complication and we have a release on Friday."
|
| "No, you need to do it. I already talked to the Engineering
| Manager."
|
| I can't remember exactly what I said next, but it wasn't very
| nice.*
|
| Then I'm getting called into the Engineering Manager's office:
| "Can you just do the thing he asked you to do, please? I know, I
| know... we kinda have to humor him on this."
|
| * - of course I remember what I said, and it definitely wasn't
| nice.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| Sounds like a manager that is afraid of confrontation.
| chasd00 wrote:
| "fire the assholes", there's a whole chapter on that in the
| Dilbert Principal.
| toomanyrichies wrote:
| > "I know, I know... we kinda have to humor him on this."
|
| I'm sorry... what? Why did they feel the need to placate a
| junior _at all_ , let alone with a leap-frog promotion? In what
| way was a junior engineer not replaceable? Was he someone's
| cousin or something?
| feteru wrote:
| Oh boy, how did that play out? I feel as though it's a give a
| mouse a cookie situation with people power tripping like that,
| I can't imagine it resolving well until they leave...
| jcadam wrote:
| I left the company not long after that, so I don't really
| know how it ultimately played out :)
| post_break wrote:
| What about Apple changing the title to associate for former
| employees. Makes me think of Jony Ive. Would have loved to see
| them list his title as "Associate" when he left.
| adrr wrote:
| Start sending manager and hr to jail for wage theft. If an
| employee falsified timesheets they can and have been convicted of
| theft. Why isn't the reverse true?
|
| Jail is a huge motivating factor and why you don't see wide
| spread accounting fraud in public companies.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| No, you should quit instead.
|
| Making offering not enough money to someone a criminal offense
| sounds like a dangerous ground to stand on.
| adrr wrote:
| This is about following the law. Has nothing to do with
| offering money. Manager is a defined role with specific
| responsibilities and tasks.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > offering not enough money
|
| This is not what would be illegal. Wage theft is actual theft
| in the sense that they knowingly have something (and even
| sometimes attempt to retain the something) which is legally
| not theirs. Yes, the worker should quit. Yes, the worker
| should go after what's owed them. These things aren't
| mutually exclusive.
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| It's not about "offering" enough money it's about companies
| that are deliberately classifying employees as "managers"
| when they're anything but for the purposes of avoiding having
| to pay the employees overtime.
| Xeoncross wrote:
| It's just semantics, you're not compelled to stay and work
| for someone who is low-balling you.
| willcipriano wrote:
| The people aren't compelled to let you to continue to
| peaceably do business in their country if you don't wish
| to follow their laws.
| NegativeK wrote:
| Employers can just fire people who falsify time sheets.
| Or take money from the register.
| adrr wrote:
| And they can have the employee prosecuted. Just let the
| inverse happen when employers steal from employees.
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's not about offering, it's about having done it.
|
| If an employees took the same amount of money it would be
| theft, so illegally not paying that amount is a very similar
| crime.
| nouveaux wrote:
| That's probably not a path you want to go down. Do we start
| putting employees in jail for wage theft?
| adrr wrote:
| We already put people in jail for false timesheets. Wage
| theft is in the billions .
|
| https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/nsa-contractor-pleads-
| gui...
| driverdan wrote:
| Yes. Theft is a crime regardless of how it's done.
| atomicnumber3 wrote:
| Yes, at appropriate levels. I worked in several regulated
| financial institutions. Every year it was part of compliance
| training to be reminded that if you notice, for instance,
| money laundering or financial fraud, _you_ can be personally
| liable and go to jail.
|
| This isn't a new concept at all. Professional engineers have
| similar levels of risk if they breach ethics, though I don't
| know if it's criminal or just self regulatory and civil.
| hardolaf wrote:
| Yup. When I worked in the defense industry, even as an
| unlicensed engineer, I was bound by threat of prosecution
| to report a wide category of violations. Per our agreement
| with the US DoD, even workplace injuries which could impact
| our readiness fell under this definition. Now that I'm over
| in the finance space, if I ever notice anything suggesting
| a financial crime, I am required by law to report it.
| reidjs wrote:
| There's more nuance to this topic than "Company bad! They trick
| dumb labor into a bad deal!"
|
| Money isn't the only form of compensation a job can provide. Give
| a low level worker a $0.43 cent raise, and they won't give a
| crap, it's not enough to change anything. But give them an
| 'employee of the month' medal and a new title, arguably worth
| much less than $0.43 cents, and they may actually prefer it! It's
| something for their resume, something to tell their mother about,
| these things adds prestige and dignity to a hard job that may
| have none.
| burkaman wrote:
| I challenge you to find a single person making less than
| $40,000 who would rather get a new title and no overtime pay
| ever again vs. $2000 extra per year.
| guywithahat wrote:
| I agree. People like to know they're appreciated. This is a new
| way to let them know they're appreciated. Nothing inherently
| sinister about it unless you're opposed to the idea of private
| companies doing positive things
| HWR_14 wrote:
| You have it exactly backwards. A low level person might get a
| 6% raise from that $0.43/hr. That's a lot! Someone making six
| figures on the other hand is getting a sub-1% raise. To say
| nothing of the use they have for those dollars. That might be
| the difference between fixing a car or not to a lower level
| person. To a higher level person it's a new console.
|
| Meanwhile, "employee of the month bagging groceries and
| promotion to sr. Bagger" doesn't mean much, but a higher level
| person is likely to value something like a title bump that they
| use on their resume to get the next job.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| I was once a low-level worker who got a $0.75 raise and I cared
| enough to find a better job. Had nothing to do with my lack of
| "employee of the month" medal but rather the fact that I
| couldn't pay rent every month without adding to my credit card
| debt.
| reidjs wrote:
| Fair enough I also don't give a crap about company accolades
| or titles, and wish it would all just go towards increasing
| my compensation.
|
| Some people, however misguided they may be, don't think like
| we do though
| phkahler wrote:
| On the flip side I think one company game me a manager title in
| order to offer the pay rate I wanted. It also came with a higher
| annual bonus - up to 15 percent vs 5 for others. My boss was a
| bit of a micromanager so he mostly ran my team - the official
| system also gave mixed signals on who they reported to.
| yellowpencil wrote:
| Somewhat tangential but an acquaintance at a Fortune-500 level
| company mentioned to me they are converting tons of currently
| salaried employees to hourly. These are white collar desk jobs at
| corporate HQ. I have to infer theres some sort of cost-cutting
| (wage theft?) motive behind this. Are these types of tactics
| becoming more prevalent in the white collar world?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| My guess: so they can flexibly cut hours when they need to save
| a bit of costs in a way they can't with salaried employees.
| thombat wrote:
| Yep, how about a nice zero-hours contact coupled to a non-
| compete clause. Bring your own stool so you can sit in the
| lobby and wait to see if you'll be making any money today.
| hourago wrote:
| Miss-classifying employees, earnings or costs are great ways for
| companies to cheat taxes and labor laws.
|
| "Self employed" is used in the same way. Many people in the gig-
| economy are just employees that are not legally hired because
| companies want to avoid any responsibility while still profiting
| from employees.
| nrdgrrrl wrote:
| [dead]
| gumby wrote:
| I expect the IRS will start regulating this the way they did the
| abuse of contractors.
|
| The result will screw some people for whom the arrangement
| (contractor / exempt) works will, will make the paperwork
| tedious, but will overall help most workers.
|
| People gaming the system just cause Bastiat loss.
| neverartful wrote:
| Banks have been doing this for decades. If you're not a VP within
| 3 months some may wonder if something is wrong with you.
| m348e912 wrote:
| My coworkers and I used to joke that at banks, even cleaning
| staff get VP titles.
| bombcar wrote:
| Banks hand out VP titles like candy so that the customers
| think they're hot stuff and being treated well.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I recently started working in finance at a F500 company and
| the number of vice presidents is astounding. People doing
| data entry are vice presidents. What's really interesting
| is there are 5 - 10 CIOs as well
| nowherebeen wrote:
| People outside the finance industry really buy it too. I
| think it's because in most companies, VPs are above
| director. Only in finance, is it below.
| Hermitian909 wrote:
| > I think it's because in most companies, VPs are above
| director.
|
| Every now and again someone whose spent a career
| exclusively in finance gets bitten by this when
| transitioning into the business world. A friend once told
| me a story about a deal with Amazon nearly getting tanked
| when I coworker chewed out an Amazon VP, saying they
| wanted to "talk to someone who could make decisions".
| Took a _lot_ of massaging to salvage that deal.
| watwut wrote:
| Enjoyable to imagine this. The ex finance people I work
| with are quite toxic towards those lower on hierarchy.
| Cool to hear about someone being bitten by it for once.
| throwanem wrote:
| That must've been a fun wall to be a fly on.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Can confirm: I made VP at Merrill Lynch at 28 I think. It
| was complete BS; my resume literally says "Vice President
| (I have no idea why we were all VPs either)"
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Ahh, but those are not real VPs. Those are likely all AVPs
| ( less power, less money ) and not VPs or SVPs. Naturally,
| all the customer sees is a vice-president, but for HR
| purposes they are 'only' AVPs. I kinda hate it, because I
| have ridiculous title for HR purposes now myself and I am
| 'just' IC in real life.
|
| edit: added quotation marks to just. I like being an IC.
| jrockway wrote:
| I think it depends on the bank. I worked at Bank of
| America and random mid-career programmers were
| legitimately VPs. Officer -> AVP -> VP -> Director was
| the title progression at the time.
| chollida1 wrote:
| Banks doing this is for a completely different reason.
|
| Banks aren't trying to stiff their traders out of overtime.
| They do it because a VP has certain signing power as an
| executive that regular employees don't.
|
| have been through this many times and very HR department on the
| sell and buy side says the same thing.
| lifefeed wrote:
| My time working at Bank of America was strange because of this.
| Everyone's title was either Analyst or VP.
| [deleted]
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Some of the answers excuse this as "only a VP has signing
| authority."
|
| That probably accounts for _some_ of the VP titles. I kinda
| doubt that all the VPs in your average BofA office are always
| signing things, and couldn 't _possibly_ just go to their boss
| for a signature, like normal people do.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I was under the impression it was partially a client
| relations thing; "Oh, I'm talking to a _vice president_ of
| the bank! I must be important! "
| AlbertCory wrote:
| Right. Part of the ego boost of the title.
| yttribium wrote:
| "VP" title is a regulatory requirement because only "bank
| officers" have legal authority to do certain actions.
| jmclnx wrote:
| If I understand the article, I have seen the opposite happen.
| Someone is given manager duties without a pay increase or a new
| title.
|
| But at my current company, they will eventually get the new
| title, not sure of a raise though. Maybe at that company it is
| kind of a trial.
| willcipriano wrote:
| I worked for a restaurant that did this to me. To make sure I hit
| the "minimum hours" (when you start talking about hours vs tasks
| or responsibilities you probably aren't getting into a legitimate
| salary arrangement) they would have me clock in and out, and I'd
| get pay stubs with 40 hours (less if I worked less) and the
| overtime hours paid at $0.
|
| They withheld my last paycheck when I quit and stopped responding
| to my calls so I had to file with the PA labor board, I sent in
| those paystubs and answered questions about the role and what I
| did there. Couple weeks later they send me a check for 20 grand
| out of the blue, the business had to pay back overtime becuase I
| was misclassifed. I was just looking for the $300 or so they owed
| me, was really surprised with the outcome.
| pxue wrote:
| As a small government advocate, i have no issue with labor
| boards.
|
| the alternative is violence or unionization, neither of which
| are optimal in resolving disputes like these in a civilized and
| efficient manner.
| hourago wrote:
| > the alternative is violence or unionization, neither of
| which are optimal in resolving disputes like these in a
| civilized and efficient manner.
|
| Unionization is a great way of solving disputes. Many big
| corporations need to be counter-weight with some other big
| organization.
|
| To put violence and unions at the same level seems uncalled
| for.
| WesternWind wrote:
| Folks with union jobs tend do better then their same
| industry non union counterparts, in terms of wages, health
| care, access to sick days, etc.
|
| There is however a third choice, which is government
| regulation. Unfortunately government regulations can't
| adapt as quickly as a union can to changes.
|
| Maybe the relatively inflexibility of regulation is what is
| needed to maintain a minimum necessary commitment to living
| wages and reasonable benefits though.
| fooker wrote:
| > Folks with union jobs tend do better
|
| Just like planes which survived battles only had bullet
| marks on their wings.
| Idk__Throwaway wrote:
| > Many big corporations need to be counter-weight with some
| other big organization.
|
| Such as labor boards, or rather the government that gives
| them power.
| HEmanZ wrote:
| Unionization can have serious problems/risks. I this case,
| where the business is literally breaking the law, there is
| no need to get a union involved.
|
| Wage theft is illegal. It should be treated as a legal
| issue where the state gets involved and uses its monopoly
| on force to enforce the law. That's what the state is there
| for.
|
| [Aside, putting violence at the same level as unions: I've
| been around a union, while working in a factory in the
| midwest US, that had "kneebreakers" that "encouraged"
| members to vote a certain way by threat-of-force, support
| certain candidates for union leadership, and used the Union
| to blatantly extort local businesses and politicians. Not
| every union is like this, but blue-collar unions in the US
| have a history of going this way. Which, even tho I like
| unionization in theory and cheer a bit inside when I see
| union action at e.g Starbucks or Amazon, I have seen a very
| terrible union and so they scare me.]
| [deleted]
| bmitc wrote:
| A lot of unions directly block solving disputes, choosing
| instead to deny all disputes. I know one union that was
| perfectly happy letting government workers make sox figures
| while "working" from home, while they produced objectively
| zero work over a period of months. These were the type of
| workers that would keep government equipment after
| retiring, quitting, or rarely being fired, requiring the
| government to send officers to collect. _Any_ movement
| towards trying to get the workers to do literally anything
| or simply rating them low was met with vehement pushback.
| Like a union representative storming into you 're office
| and yelling.
|
| In this case, the union was a giant ball of mud whose only
| existence was to hold the government hostage.
|
| As much as I dislike Thune power corporations can hold,
| unions are not a fix all and can become the same overlords.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| Generally I am more suspicious of public sector unions
| than private. The power of private sector unions is
| counterbalanced by the profit motive of the company;
| meanwhile governments are often perfectly happy wasting a
| fortune in taxpayer dollars.
| acdha wrote:
| To the extent that the government wastes money, why
| should we believe that's due to a union and not unrelated
| issues such as outside politics?
| kennend3 wrote:
| https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/federal-union-
| wants-4...
|
| You tell us, is a 47% increase in pay "normal"?
|
| why did the body intended to help with the negotiations
| write this:
|
| The union's proposals "do not appear realistic for what
| should be a fairly advanced stage of negotiations. The
| numerous proposals are not focused and they would result
| in an increase to compensation far beyond what is
| reasonable," reads the unanimous report signed by three
| commissioners.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| Conrad Black built the National Post around the Financial
| Post, a financial newspaper in Toronto which Hollinger
| Inc. purchased from Sun Media in 1997. Financial Post was
| retained as the name of the new newspaper's business
| section.
|
| Beyond his political vision, Black attempted to compete
| directly with Kenneth Thomson's media empire led in
| Canada by The Globe and Mail, which Black and many others
| perceived as the platform of the Liberal establishment.
|
| --wikipedia
| bawolff wrote:
| > You tell us, is a 47% increase in pay "normal"?
|
| Maybe. Depends on what the value they provide is.
|
| In the tech industry, getting a 47% raise by job hopping
| to a new job that does the exact same thing, isn't
| unheard of, so it seems entirely plausible it could be
| justified. If it actually is in this case, i don't know,
| but its not crazy on its face.
| bmitc wrote:
| Apologies for the phone-based typos. Corrections: sox ->
| six, you're -> your, and Thune -> the.
| kennend3 wrote:
| You can simply step back and watch what is taking place
| in Canada right now.
|
| https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/federal-union-
| wants-4...
|
| Because it is not going anywhere, they had an independent
| body get involved, their commentary says it all:
|
| "The union's proposals "do not appear realistic for what
| should be a fairly advanced stage of negotiations. The
| numerous proposals are not focused and they would result
| in an increase to compensation far beyond what is
| reasonable," reads the unanimous report signed by three
| commissioners."
|
| These same union employees are also fighting "unilateral
| contract changes" that mandates they return to the
| office, but did not fight the unilateral contract changes
| that allowed them to WFH in the first place?
|
| The contract they signed was for "IN_PERSON" work, so
| they are simply being asked to do what they signed up for
| prior to COVID.
| bawolff wrote:
| > would result in an increase to compensation far beyond
| what is reasonable
|
| Its a negotiation. The union asking for the highest
| number it can get is what its supposed to do.
| bmitc wrote:
| > Its a negotiation.
|
| Only relevant in a spirit-like sense, but reading this
| line immediately reminded me of this scene in
| _Intolerable Cruelty_ :
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PpQk63iIWw
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| >These same union employees are also fighting "unilateral
| contract changes" that mandates they return to the
| office, but did not fight the unilateral contract changes
| that allowed them to WFH in the first place?
|
| Huh? They fight against contract changes they don't like,
| and don't fight against contract changes they do like?
| Sounds pretty crazy to me.
| hourago wrote:
| > I know one union that was perfectly happy letting
| government workers make sox figures while "working" from
| home, while they produced objectively zero work over a
| period of months.
|
| "Companies save billions of dollars by giving employees
| fake "manager" titles" is fraud. If you do not like
| unions because ONE did something that you do not like ,
| how much do you hate companies were you have thousands of
| examples of bad behavior?
|
| > As much as I dislike Thune power corporations can hold,
| unions are not a fix all and can become the same
| overlords.
|
| I do not know what concept do you have about unions, but
| it seems come from anti-union propaganda and not from any
| reasonable definition of what a union is. Unions gave us
| the eight hour work week, vacations and many more rights.
| That is not "overlord" behavior but being able to
| negotiate with powerful corporations.
| JamesBarney wrote:
| On hackernews most of the complaints I see about unions
| are people who've had direct experience with unions.
|
| My experience with unions was they were shady, jobs were
| given out based on nepotism, work was given out solely
| based on seniority and most work you did for them
| involved kickbacks.
| wobbly_bush wrote:
| >If you do not like unions because ONE did something that
| you do not like
|
| Not the person you are replying to, but I think
| discounting the behavior of unions as one-off is not
| helping. The examples I have are from outside US though -
| there are entire states where union presence is strong.
| Those states had a good industrial sector but over
| several decades the unions made it so problematic for the
| industries there that majority of businesses moved to
| states where there were no unions. Public calls for
| "strikes" and other work-stopping behavior and violence
| is common occurence in those states. So the risk of a
| union becoming mafia-like is more than just propaganda -
| it has plenty of examples worldwide in several countries.
| bmitc wrote:
| I described something that literally took place, and the
| behavior was performed by a union, not me. This isn't
| propaganda. It is a description of something that
| happened involving a union. If I am anti anything, it is
| anti-"institutions that have mismatched incentives and
| conflicts of interest", and so that involves both
| corporations and unions, but not all of them. Note that
| my original comment said very clearly that "unions are
| not a _fix all_ and _can_ become the same overlords ".
| Your comment that I replied to seemed to imply that
| unions are a silver bullet that fixes anything wrong with
| corporation and worker relations, and that is what I was
| replying to that that is not always the case. There are
| plenty examples of this.
| realslimjd wrote:
| What do unions have to do with small government? A union
| contract is an agreement between two private parties.
| pxue wrote:
| Nothing. Small government is relating to government run
| labor boards.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| But it's not. There are tons and tons of "union laws" that
| treat unions very differently than any other entity.
|
| Some of these laws hurt unions, others help.
|
| For example, a union contract can't require an employer to
| hire only union members.
|
| That would create a situation where people would apply to
| the union first, and if they union accepted them, then they
| apply for the job.
|
| That would give unions too much power, so it's not allowed.
|
| Another law forbids sympathy strikes. Unions can only
| strike against their own employers, not in sympathy with
| other strikers.
|
| Modern labor law also seeks to discourage strikes by using
| a war-game like approach to negotiating. Maybe a good idea,
| maybe not. But certainly not something that happens for
| non-union orgs.
|
| If we adopted a "hands off" approach to unions, we could
| easily wind up with insanely powerful unions.
|
| If 2% of the working population went on strike
| simultaneously, the economy would stop working quickly.
|
| So general strikes are very illegal, even though they are
| 100% in accord with libertarian ideology.
| [deleted]
| pupperino wrote:
| What _really_ matters is how human institutions and
| organizations shape each other 's incentives and costs [1].
| Instead of aiming for abstract, intangible goals like "small"
| or "big" government, how about developing a sense of
| institutional design and relating that to a set of moral and
| political values. That way, it's actually possible to debug
| disagreements, either reducing them down to moral values and
| hopefully leaving it out of the public sphere or locating
| actual policy questions with less room for aesthetics and
| more for evidence, studies and sensible debate.
|
| [1] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w10481/w
| 104...
| fHr wrote:
| Unionization is amazing. I do not know why especially people
| in US are so against this. Did they just gave up and are okay
| with the big corps fucking them over withouth having any
| leverage?
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _I do not know why especially people in US are so against
| this._
|
| I think there's some truth to the old adage that there's a
| class of Americans, especially represented among the HN
| crowd that "see themselves not as an exploited proletariat
| but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires."
|
| There are many reasons for the decline of organized labor
| in the US. Some cultural yeah, but just as much, if not
| more, legal...
|
| "Right to work" legislation
|
| Employers fighting harder against unionization
|
| Decreased enforcement of labor laws
|
| Judges (including SCOTUS) who keep striking down labor
| protections
|
| Media portrayal of unions
| bawolff wrote:
| Tech industry generally has a shortage of skilled labour.
| That gives labour a lot of power, which makes unions seem
| less important. At least when times are good.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| more than a hundred years ago, the USA was not a large
| world power.. more than half the country was frontier and a
| lot of raw agriculture that is dependent on labor. When the
| 'red' social flames burned through Europe at the end of the
| Great Monarchies, political people here in the USA were
| seriously worried. So an ugly deal was forged.. the
| hardcore lefts were jailed and harassed and beaten.. and
| insider right wing groups that knew how to play for the
| long term were elevated to power. This is not popular to
| say, but the history is there for the reading, about ethnic
| gangsters running unions across the USA. It never was
| completely cleared up and persisted well into the 1970s and
| perhaps later.. The public relations campaign by Big Media
| was very effective at smearing the name of Unions to the
| public, and the Unions made some dumb moves, too.
|
| High tech and Hollywood generated huge money, and Wall
| Street style money was always anti-Union. It is worth
| saying that Hollywood movie production is very heavily
| unionized, and that small system works pretty well.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Another interpretation is that the New Deal
| institutionalized labor. Labor got a seat at the table in
| exchange for removing radical elements.
| mistrial9 wrote:
| new movie out --
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Irishman
| anonuser123456 wrote:
| Maybe you should stop thinking that the working class is
| stupid and start thinking about why they rejected unions.
|
| My working class family members (all in the same trade)
| universally hate unions and their reasons are quite
| reasonable; my grandfather was in union leadership until he
| was run out by the mob and my cousin had to pay tribute
| (e.g a protection racket) to the new leadership.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| My mom was a nurse. She helped unionize her profession back
| in the 1960s.
|
| By the time she retired in 21st century, she hated her
| union.
|
| She particularly hated their support for Obamacare. They
| had an exception so it didn't affect their agreements. But
| that ignored the fact that _the nurses had to actually
| implement it._
|
| It was an administrative clusterf*ck. Nurses spent hours
| listening to consultants telling them how to improve
| patient reviews, which were now tied to compensation.
|
| The unions were like "the Democrats now owe us, so we will
| get paid back down the road."
|
| She literally quit over that.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Living in America is expensive, wages are relatively low,
| and long labor fights result in financial devastation that
| might take years to recover from despite some of the gains
| being virtually negligible in terms of real impact on the
| wallets of employees. There are many people, especially of
| boomer age, who are still haunted by long-term strikes.
| Strikes have more of an effect when they're against smaller
| companies. Huge conglomerates like Shell and Exxon don't
| care. They can afford to wait them out.
| mattmcknight wrote:
| > wages are relatively low
|
| source?
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > Couple weeks later they send me a check for 20 grand out of
| the blue
|
| Glad this ended up working out in your favor. Your story makes
| me wonder how often such a practice doesn't end with the
| employer forking up the 20 grand they stole. I guess I've heard
| it said that wage theft is the most common form of theft but
| this is still rather frustrating to think about.
|
| Does this sort of practice come with some other punishment or
| does the board just tell the employer to pay what's owed?
| bagels wrote:
| The most common outcome is that the employee ends up with no
| remedy because most people don't know anything about labor
| laws or about the fact that most states have a department of
| labor or equivalent that can solve the problem for you.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Your story makes me wonder how often such a practice
| doesn't end with the employer forking up the 20 grand they
| stole.
|
| As gp showed, most people are not fully aware of their labor
| rights, and when they are, may not know the remedies
| available to them. Wage theft is endemic because of
| information asymmetry.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Lots of people don't know about labor boards so I think they
| get away with it most of the time. In ten years across seven
| restaurants in the restaurant industry that was the only time
| I was paid time and a half for overtime, lots of places do
| cash overtime instead. Even the chains have stolen labor from
| me, did a month at Applebee's and the manager would "save me
| time" by clocking me out 15 - 20 minutes early at the end of
| the night (it took seconds to clock out). Illegal immigrants
| in particular know that they are unlikely to get their last
| pay in the restaurant industry, they aren't likely to sue or
| contact the authorities, they also get screwed on workers
| comp claims when they get injured. We talk a lot about
| unfairness for waitstaff but that's paradise compared to the
| back of the house. It's absolutely commonplace and likely
| happening at any restaurant you go to.
|
| In PA they have to pay double whatever is collected, so they
| wrote a similar check to the labor board, that's how they are
| funded and I think it's revenue positive.
| lcnPylGDnU4H9OF wrote:
| > In PA they have to pay double whatever is collected
|
| That's exactly the thing I'd hope to see. It's unfortunate
| that it's such a process, considering how easy it is to
| simply not know.
| ihatepython wrote:
| All they had to do was give you your last paycheck, they would
| have saved 20k and gotten away with it
| BonoboIO wrote:
| 20 Grand ... like 20.000$
|
| WOW. That's a nice surprise.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| When I was an 11 year old, I got a job working for a local swim
| club. I'd go to the property, open the gate, and clean the
| grounds and take out the trash. They figured since I wasn't
| technically old enough to work, they could pay me $2.30 an hour
| when $4.25 was the minimum wage at the time. I adjusted my
| recorded hours versus worked hours accordingly. Given that
| there were no cameras on premises, the timesheets were manual,
| and I was always there alone, I never had an issue.
| LarryMullins wrote:
| Reminds me of a lifeguarding job I had at a private lake club
| when I was a teen. They let me report _and set_ my own hours.
| I never abused that trust, but it was pretty strange when my
| boss explained that they 'd pay me for however much I chose
| to work during daylight hours (the lake was "closed" after
| dark.) I did end up working a few very long days on holidays
| for the extra cash.
| nostrademons wrote:
| I do wonder how many of these are honeypots to see which
| workers they'd like to invite back next year.
|
| It's pretty well-known that the point of an internship
| isn't to actually accomplish any useful work, it's to
| determine which students you would like to extend an offer
| to for full-time employment. Not a large leap to assume
| that a lot of adolescent employment follows this pattern.
| The wages you'd pay a teen are chump change for most
| businesses, but responsible, intelligent, trustworthy
| employees basically disappear from the job market after
| their first job (because everybody wants to keep them), and
| so it can be a great investment to identify, vet, and
| introduce yourself to them _before_ they 're on the open
| market.
| nostrademons wrote:
| "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay." -- Soviet
| Russia
| shepardrtc wrote:
| I worked at a university in Florida that did this to me. I was
| being made to work overtime on a few software projects and making
| a nice little amount of extra money. Then one day I found out
| that I was being "promoted" to a manager title. No raise or any
| extra benefits, but I was no longer allowed to get overtime. It
| was part of a campus-wide initiative to cut costs. And now that I
| was a manager I was expected to work even more than before.
|
| Year later, the day before I gave my two weeks, my boss told me I
| was becoming known as an 8 to 5 guy... I wasn't working enough
| extra hours. After I told him that he wasn't paying me enough to
| waste my life away at the job, he wasn't too surprised when I
| gave my notice the next day.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| I'm old enough to recall the subtle bait and switch we've done.
| 8 to 5 phrase used to be 9-5.
|
| The fact is the majority of the work day is wasted, just like I
| waste ghz all the time because it's cheap, why wouldn't
| employers waste your time if it's free?
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| > I worked at a university in Florida that did this to me.
|
| Florida academia and pay fuckery, name a more iconic duo. FIU
| Alumni and Ex-Employee Here.
| unglaublich wrote:
| An 8 to 5 guy is a 6 to 10 guy at home, and that's already
| pretty weak on the work-life balance scale!
| ornornor wrote:
| Just curious: are you able to refuse a promotion. Especially
| this kind of "promotion"? What happens then? Do you get fired
| because... reasons or do you just keep your current job title
| etc?
| shepardrtc wrote:
| No. My boss rewrote my job description to fit the new type of
| position and then my position was changed. He convinced me it
| was my path to promotion. I suppose that was true - I was
| promoted again. This time I was given a 1k raise, but I was
| taking on the additional duties of a manager that quit. So
| double the work for another 1k a year.
| astura wrote:
| If you're employed "at will" (and almost everyone in the US
| is) you can't refuse "promotions." From the company's
| perspective they are deciding to no longer employ you for
| position a, but they are simultaneously offering to employ
| you for position b. You can take it or leave it.
|
| Employment "at will" means either the employer or employee
| can end the relationship at any time for any reason or no
| reason at all.
| Merad wrote:
| > If you're employed "at will" (and almost everyone in the
| US is) you can't refuse "promotions." From the company's
| perspective they are deciding to no longer employ you for
| position a, but they are simultaneously offering to employ
| you for position b. You can take it or leave it.
|
| That's not correct. Being employed at will means that you
| _can_ be let go for refusing a promotion (or just about any
| other reason) but it doesn't mean that automatically
| happens. There are plenty of companies that understand that
| some people reach a point where they don't care about
| climbing the ladder anymore and don't want to take on more
| responsibility.
| jrs235 wrote:
| And failing to take a promotion probably isn't a "for
| cause" reason to deny unemployment insurance
| payments/claims.
| wonderwonder wrote:
| I had something similar. I was contracting for a company as a
| solution architect. Got paid OT for any hours I worked over 45.
| I was working 75-90 hours a week. Not because I wanted to, that
| was just the workload. They offered to bring me on full time
| with benefits. Salary was 40k less and no OT. I declined. Then
| they said ok but they have to cut my OT. I said fine and never
| worked a minute over 40 hours a week for the next 6 months
| before quitting.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| If your categorization can be subverted by changing a title, it
| either needs a better definition or it needs to not exist.
| Otherwise you're making decisions based on daydreams that can
| wreck people's lives. And I'm very pessimistic about a better
| definition, since I think technology is going to make the line
| between "worker" and "manager" even blurrier over time, in
| practice if not in law.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Having direct reports would be a fairly sensible condition that
| would be difficult to fake, it not being in the law revels that
| the law is working as intended.
| zokier wrote:
| > Generally, companies are required to pay workers one-and-a-half
| times their hourly rate anytime they work more than 40 hours in a
| week. But there's an exemption for salaried managers, who receive
| the same amount of pay each week, as long as they earn above a
| certain minimum amount.
|
| Somehow I feel the companies are not the problem here. That
| exemption is pretty ridiculous to have in the first place.
| Regardless of these "fake" managers, why don't "real" managers
| deserve OT pay?
| rahimnathwani wrote:
| The article isn't mainly about manager titles. The manager titles
| are just part of the way companies justify paying people a fixed
| salary (with no paid overtime) vs. paying people for the hours
| they work. They found that the incidence of fake-
| sounding manager titles spiked at the legal threshold of $455 a
| week -- exactly the cutoff at which a company would be allowed to
| put workers on salary and sidestep OT payment laws.
| ineptech wrote:
| This is not quite true. To be exempt from overtime, the
| position has to pay that much _and_ meet a set of
| requirements[0]. The inflated "manager" titles are not just to
| dupe the employee, they're an attempt to skirt Federal labor
| laws, which is why the article mentions companies losing
| lawsuits over this practice.
|
| 0: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/fact-sheets/17a-overtime
|
| "However, Section 13(a)(1) of the FLSA provides an exemption
| from both minimum wage and overtime pay for employees employed
| as bona fide executive, administrative, professional and
| outside sales employees... 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."
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| I'll never understand how $11.38 an hour is manager money in
| any line of work.
| alar44 wrote:
| It's not and doesn't meet the minimum requirement for a
| salaried worker. I believe you need to make $48,500, or
| roughly $24ish/hr.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Hmm, you're right that's not the requirement now, but based
| upon the documents provided by ineptech, it looks like:
|
| "To qualify for exemption, employees generally must meet
| certain tests regarding their job duties and be paid on a
| salary basis at not less than $684* per week." as of
| January 1, 2020. It was at the previously mentioned value
| before that.
|
| So that's $17.10/hr to be a manager, or about $35k / year.
| bagels wrote:
| Depends on the state.
|
| Federally: Currently, the salary threshold for exempt
| employees is $684 a week ($35,568 annualized)
| https://www.fisherphillips.com/news-
| insights/planning-2023-c...
| commoner wrote:
| The Department of Labor's increase of the standard salary
| level to $47,476 was blocked by the courts.
|
| > The Department increased the standard salary level from
| $455 per week ($23,660 per year) to $913 per week ($47,476
| per year) in a final rule published May 23, 2016 ("2016
| final rule"). That rulemaking was challenged in court, and
| on November 22, 2016, the U.S. District Court for the
| Eastern District of Texas enjoined the Department from
| implementing and enforcing the rule. On August 31, 2017,
| the court granted summary judgment against the Department,
| invalidating the 2016 final rule because it "makes overtime
| status depend predominately on a minimum salary level,
| thereby supplanting an analysis of an employee's job
| duties." Nevada v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, 275 F. Supp. 3d
| 795, 806 (E.D. Tex. 2017).
|
| The current standard salary level is $35,568.
|
| > When applied to updated data, these methodologies result
| in a standard salary level of $684 per week ($35,568 per
| year) and an HCE total annual compensation level of
| $107,432. Finally, the Department intends to update these
| thresholds more regularly in the future.
|
| > The Department estimates that in 2020, 1.2 million
| currently exempt employees who earn at least $455 per week
| but less than the standard salary level of $684 per week
| will, without some intervening action by their employers,
| gain overtime eligibility. The Department also estimates
| that an additional 2.2 million white collar workers who are
| currently nonexempt because they do not satisfy the EAP
| duties tests and currently earn at least $455 per week, but
| less than $684 per week, will have their overtime-eligible
| status strengthened in 2020 because these employees will
| now fail both the salary level and duties tests. Lastly, an
| estimated 101,800 employees who are currently exempt under
| the HCE test will be affected by the increase in the HCE
| total annual compensation level.
|
| https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2019/09/27/2019-2
| 0...
| langitbiru wrote:
| It's correct. Some people choose status over money.
| https://robkhenderson.substack.com/p/status-over-money-money...
|
| "The solution, then, is to pay the low-status workers a bit more
| than they are worth to get them to stay. The high-status workers,
| in contrast, accept lower pay for the benefit of their lofty
| positions."
|
| The consequence of this is job title inflation.
|
| https://www.economist.com/business/2022/12/08/the-scourge-of...
| tyre wrote:
| That's not what this article is about.
| fy20 wrote:
| In my country there is a legal difference between an employee and
| a manager position, so just giving the title alone doesn't mean
| anything. There is nothing really different about it in reality,
| but to truly be a manager you need to have a different job
| contract.
|
| Additionally there is a limit on the ratio of managers to
| employees, if it's too high can get you in trouble with the
| labour board. When my company opened an office here, the first
| thing they did was hire the managers who then hired the team
| below them - but due to the limit not everyone could have the
| manager title at first.
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| My first thought as an easy fix for this was similar to what
| you are suggesting - I was thinking to be truly qualified as a
| manager you need to have at least 1 or 2 direct reports over a
| certain period of time or else you don't qualify. I think in
| practice that is essentially almost the same as the ratio
| requirement you are talking about.
| logicalmonster wrote:
| As an employee, I wouldn't be too miffed about a fake "on-paper"
| promotion with a fancy job title. In the short run, it's not
| usually beneficial to anything other than your ego, but in the
| long-run that fancy title is your ticket to job-hopping to a
| better situation.
|
| From a business perspective, this seems like a sort of a penny-
| wise, pound-foolish decision because an employee who has a fancy
| "Director of X" title is probably more likely able to find
| employment elsewhere because of their fancy job title. In the
| long run, a company will probably pay more through having
| somebody swap jobs, having to pay extra to poach somebody, and
| pay for recruitment and training.
| dopylitty wrote:
| I've said it before but I'll keep pounding the drum that the FLSA
| needs to be completely rewritten.
|
| Any work more than 8 hours in a day should result in overtime pay
| regardless of type of work or base salary.
|
| It's ridiculous that companies can force people to work 24/7 with
| no extra pay just because those people happen to work with
| computers or in "knowledge" work.
|
| And even developers/IT folks are largely not making FAANG money.
| They're working at hospitals/insurance companies making the
| equivalent of what a factory worker made in the 1950s.
| alar44 wrote:
| It's not that simple though. I'm an IT Director. A good chunk
| of my time is just thinking and not doing. It's impossible to
| measure the amount of work I do in a day because I'm thinking
| about stuff when I shower, or am walking the dog etc. Do I sit
| at my laptop 8 hours a day? Fuck no. Do I work 8 hours a day?
| Probably, but it's hard to say. I can't say "I worked for 9.5
| hours today" because it's impossible to measure.
| buildbot wrote:
| I think it is pretty simple - do you have to be somewhere or
| be available for more than 8 hours a day? If you are 24/7 on
| call for issues, that deserves a huge pay bump. In other
| fields it's even more true - doctors for example, when
| oncall, have to be ready to work at a moments notice. So no
| drinking or other recreational drugs, or going skiing
| somewhere remote, or being out of cell range... If it effects
| you life for more than 8 hours a day, you should be payed for
| that.
| hardolaf wrote:
| I'm a design engineer. A lot of my time is also thinking. I
| can be "working" but actually just reading articles or
| clearing my mind. And I can be in the middle of a gaming
| session later that same day and suddenly come up with a
| solution to a problem. How many hours I work is very
| subjective based on your definition of "work".
|
| But to make up for this I am also compensated several times
| the median household income. And the threshold for paying
| people like me should definitely be set to at least 2x the
| median household income for the region in which you work or
| 2x the federal average whichever is more. Currently, that'd
| be a minimum of $141K/yr. I feel that's a reasonable cutoff
| for no more overtime pay.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > It's impossible to measure the amount of work I do in a day
| because I'm thinking about stuff when I shower, or am walking
| the dog etc.
|
| This is why work from home was such a boon. Finally i could
| have shower thoughts on company time. Finally I could get
| away from the incompetent coworkers who kept asking me to do
| their job for them... some days I'd literally help others
| till 5PM and then start my job when they went home. And then
| my boss would say "You missed your delivery" and Id be like
| yea, but the 10 people who cant function without me hit
| theirs... Somehow that lesson wasn't part of their MBA.
|
| (I'm always happy to help those who are truly trying and
| willing to do the work!)
| dboreham wrote:
| This is not actually how the FLSA works folks. There are tests to
| determine if a given employee is exempt or not and they have
| nothing to do with their title. So go talk to your local dept of
| labor and get them to take action against your employer.
|
| Also, some posters here have said that simply working in IT makes
| the job exempt. Not true.
|
| Source: family member formerly worked in this field.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| I guess this is news if you study at Harvard Business School, not
| so much if you've had a job in industry anytime in the past 30
| years.
| sigzero wrote:
| This is even a trope on sitcoms and has been forever. lol
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Every teenager who has ever had a job at a convenient
| store/fast food/restaurant/hotel/etc knows this. Enough of
| the population simply likes it because it keeps prices low
| for them, and maybe some of them justify it themselves by
| having been already subjected to it.
| ElfinTrousers wrote:
| Not to mention that calling a 19-year-old "manager" and
| maybe giving them a different color uniform shirt is a good
| way to get that 19-year-old more engaged in the job, that
| doesn't involve any extra expense on the employer's part.
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