"Whatever Happened to Overtime?", a piece written by a Job Creator

[Martinus]

BTW on wealth accumulation, is wealth accumulated due to stocks held rising in value being counted in that? If yes, how big a portion that is? Because that's not "real" wealth.

That is not really true. Sure, you have speculative bubbles now and then (which, by the way, still accumulate significant wealth for speculators who manage to sell at the right time), but at least in theory the difference between the net asset value of a company and the overall capitalisation represents goodwill which may not be tangible, but can still be a substantial representation of wealth (and in fact for a company like Apple or Google is most of their wealth).

[crazy canuck]

Is the article accurate that the legal requirement of an employer to pay overtime is tied to the employee's annual income?

[Martinus]

Is the article accurate that the legal requirement of an employer to pay overtime is tied to the employee's annual income?

Out of curiosity, are you being paid overtime in your job?

[dps]

Is the article accurate that the legal requirement of an employer to pay overtime is tied to the employee's annual income?

How much a worker is paid is only one of the factors that determines whether or not they are exempt from overtime requirements.

[Tamas]

In general, even if the article is right, and that's not hard to achieve (not paying overtime is bad for the employee, good for the employer. O RLY?), this is again something that is impossible to properly influence via laws and whatnot.

Even if you have a law or not, if your boss is not paying it to you, you will only challenge it when you feel the boss is in no position to let you go. Otherwise you will just shut up and do the work regardless, law or not.

[Admiral Yi]

Y'all do realize he's talking only about *salaried* employees, right?

[Martinus]

In general, even if the article is right, and that's not hard to achieve (not paying overtime is bad for the employee, good for the employer. O RLY?), this is again something that is impossible to properly influence via laws and whatnot.

Even if you have a law or not, if your boss is not paying it to you, you will only challenge it when you feel the boss is in no position to let you go. Otherwise you will just shut up and do the work regardless, law or not.

As long as you make it a mandatory regulation, there are ways of enforcing this by a regulator/watchdog type of authority, if you want to. For example, it is extremely easy these days (in some industries more than other, but still much easier than, say, 100 years ago) to check the actual time an employee spent working/being present in the office/factory etc. Most professional service industries in fact require employees to precisely record any time spent working, either for internal productivity reporting purposes or indeed as a basis for billing a client. It is not so difficult then to run a regulatory audit every now and then on a firm/company to check if its overtime payments match the work records, if there is a political will to do so.

[CountDeMoney]

With rare exception, all I see at the http://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/faq.htm is the same language over and over.

...is a matter of agreement between an employer and an employee

...are a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee's representative).

...these benefits are a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee's representative).

...are generally a matter of agreement between an employer and employee (or the employee's representative).

This is a matter generally to be determined by the employer.

is a matter of agreement between the employer and the employee (or the employee's representative).

Just the way employers like it.

For instance, I've applied to several jobs that are classified as "non-merit".  Why is a job classified as non-merit?  Because the employer says it is.

[crazy canuck]

Here the right to overtime pay is statutory and cannot be bargained away.  That statute has a number of exemptions but none of those are related to the amount an employee earns except indirectly as one of the exemptions is for an employee who is a manager.

[crazy canuck]

Is the article accurate that the legal requirement of an employer to pay overtime is tied to the employee's annual income?

Out of curiosity, are you being paid overtime in your job?

I am not an employee 

[celedhring]

Here it's not tied to salary or anything. However, as per the reasons Tamas points out, they are often not compensated in practice.

You can, by law, exchange one hour of overtime for a reduction of one hour in your regular schedule, too.

[The Brain]

What happened to Ovaltine btw?

[Ideologue]

What happened to Ovaltine btw?

It's still here, and it's delicious.

[Ed Anger]

In the old pre recession days, not giving overtime pay was the path to high employee turnover. Now, you can just jerk 'em around because there is another sucker needing that job.

Not that I do that shit.

[crazy canuck]

In the old pre recession days, not giving overtime pay was the path to high employee turnover. Now, you can just jerk 'em around because there is another sucker needing that job.

Not that I do that shit.

Here the regulatory fines for doing that create a considerable disincentive for most established businesses.