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

[Martinus]

Ok. Guess I need to read more Picketty.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Legally there's almost no difference between salaried non-exempt and hourly, there are typically practical differences, namely:

1. Salaried employees almost always work a fixed schedule, and can usually come in late or leave early as long as they still hit their appropriate work time. Even if they don't, no one really cares if you're a little off. Hourly employees you're often paid to the minute or the quarter hour of when you clock in, and clocking in even a minute late can really get you in trouble in some settings.

2. Hourly employees usually do not work a fixed schedule, and their shifts often change over time. In some industries they do not even know if they will get 40 hours of work for the week until the schedule is posted, and often times they won't. Most salaried non-exempt people pretty much know they're working 40 hours every single week.

3. There are a decent amount of laws (including PPACA) and many State laws that treat hourly employees differently based on how many hours they regularly work.

4. Hourly employees can sometimes get something called "low earnings unemployment" if they are scheduled for less than their normal hours in a given week.

But all of these are mostly "in practice" differences, there's nothing stopping an employer from busting the balls of a salaried non-exempt employee for coming in ten minutes late. Additionally there is nothing stopping an employer from requiring a salaried non-exempt employee to rigorously track their time.

[dps]

Exactly.  I am not sure what that has to do with a statutory limit on hours worked in a day before overtime is earned.

I understand why certain types of employees should be exempted from overtime requirements.  But disentitlement to overtime simply by the method used to calculate pay seems arbitrary.  To use an example, all our secretarial staff are paid salaries.  But if they work more than the statutory limit on any given day they also earn overtime.  That just seems fair.

That would be nice. My lifetime income would be significantly higher today if ours worked like that. 

The technical term for salaried employees is "exempt". Meaning exempt from overtime rules.

Yeah, but what I am trying to understand is why an employer can exempt an employee simply by using the magic word "salary".    As I said before, it makes a great deal of sense to exempt employees based on their function.  But simply allowing an employer to waive a magic wand and pronounce an employee "salaried" and therefore not entitled to overtime makes no sense.

I think the point they are making is that in many jobs there is enough gray area so that it is feasible to qualify a job as one that either does or does not benefit from overtime regulations, depending on creative interpretation.

Yes, this is the point Seedy and I have been trying to make.  Technically, yeah, the magic word isn't "salaried" or "manager", it's "exempt", but in common usage, they've come to mean mostly the same thing.  (There are a few jobs that pay "exempt" employees by the hour, but for the most part, why would you want to do that?  If you have an exempt employee that you are paying $100/hr. on the assumption that they're working a 40 hour week, if they work 44 hours in a given week, yes, you wouldn't have to pay them time-and-a-half ($150) for the extra 4 hours, but you would still have to pay them an extra $400 that week.  Why not just make them salaried at $4000/wk. and be done with it).

Anyway, the problem is that people get classified as exempt who really shouldn't be, based on what they actually do on the job, as opposed to their formal job duties.  Seedy mentioned fast food managers somewhere back up the thread.  That's a really good example, because in a lot of fast food places, managers are classified as exempt and put on salary.  If you read what their job duties are, well, yeah, it sounds like they're spending their time doing things that would allow them to be classified as exempt, but in practice, they aren't managing the store--they're just filling in doing the things that non-exempt crew members should do--unloading the supply trucks, making sandwiches, running the drive-thru cash register, etc.  (One side affect of this is that a lot of fast food places are not at all well-run.  There's nobody actually managing the place, because the managers are too tied up performing mundane crew functions). 

[OttoVonBismarck]

Yeah, my example about a fast food manager making $40k/yr and working 70 hours a week isn't really an exaggeration, either. Other than the salary actually might be more like $30k/yrfor some of the chains, some do pay managers higher (in the $50s), the BLS average for "food service managers" is $47k, but that includes traditional restaurants and such which generally pay GMs more. Like dps says, a lot of fast food managers spend maybe five hours a week: making schedules, dealing with employee hiring/firing, taking inventory, placing product orders, the rest of their shift they're just working a ton of hours doing basically every job in the store because they tend to be one of a small number (sometimes only) employee on premise that is fully trained at every single thing that needs done in the restaurant. They're often there hours before open thoroughly cleaning and prepping and often work long after closing to get the store ready for the next day.

They're to me probably the clearest example of people really fucked over by the whole salaried/exempt/non-exempt classification scheme.

[The Brain]

They do get minions though. Many high-earners aren't so lucky.

[dps]

Yeah, my example about a fast food manager making $40k/yr and working 70 hours a week isn't really an exaggeration, either. Other than the salary actually might be more like $30k/yrfor some of the chains, some do pay managers higher (in the $50s), the BLS average for "food service managers" is $47k, but that includes traditional restaurants and such which generally pay GMs more. Like dps says, a lot of fast food managers spend maybe five hours a week: making schedules, dealing with employee hiring/firing, taking inventory, placing product orders, the rest of their shift they're just working a ton of hours doing basically every job in the store because they tend to be one of a small number (sometimes only) employee on premise that is fully trained at every single thing that needs done in the restaurant. They're often there hours before open thoroughly cleaning and prepping and often work long after closing to get the store ready for the next day.

They're to me probably the clearest example of people really fucked over by the whole salaried/exempt/non-exempt classification scheme.

But the "scheme" itself isn't the problem.  The problem is that there's essentially no system in place to ensure that people in positions classified as exempt are actually meeting the requirements to be exempt.

OTOH, not paying employees classified as non-exempt for OT due them is actually pretty rare, as far as I can tell.  I'm sure it does happen, but I don't think it's very common.

[Baron von Schtinkenbutt]

Yes, this is the point Seedy and I have been trying to make.  Technically, yeah, the magic word isn't "salaried" or "manager", it's "exempt", but in common usage, they've come to mean mostly the same thing.  (There are a few jobs that pay "exempt" employees by the hour, but for the most part, why would you want to do that?  If you have an exempt employee that you are paying $100/hr. on the assumption that they're working a 40 hour week, if they work 44 hours in a given week, yes, you wouldn't have to pay them time-and-a-half ($150) for the extra 4 hours, but you would still have to pay them an extra $400 that week.  Why not just make them salaried at $4000/wk. and be done with it).

To add the weirdness, I am currently salaried and exempt.  However, I get paid for every hour I can bill to a contract.  That is an artifact of federal government contracts, though: if we bill the contract, whomever billed the hour must be paid for it.  If I were working overtime for free I am ultimately giving the government that time for free, because my employer is not being paid for that either.

Raytheon did not work that way, but they were notorious for underbidding contracts.  The type of contracts we get tend to be fixed-price, take-it-or-leave-it deals.

[Siege]

Dude, Nick Hanauer is that communist dude featured in that commie documentary by that short dude that was secretary of labor under Prezzy rapist Clinton.

[Admiral Yi]

Robert Reich.

[Valmy]

Dude, Nick Hanauer is that communist dude featured in that commie documentary by that short dude that was secretary of labor under Prezzy rapist Clinton.

Rapist?

[Eddie Teach]

Juanita Broaddrick accused him. In Siege's mind the accusation is enough when it comes to Democratic politicians. 

[Siege]

Why is this controversial?
Rape is when a man in a position of power gets a female to service him.
Not all rape involve direct physical violence.

If Clinton had been in the military, this thing with Monica Who? would have been definitively a rape and landed him in jail with a dishonorable discharge.

[Ideologue]

And if I were in the Army, and disobeyed a direct order from my superior, I'd be put in gaol.  Yet that probably wouldn't happen if I disobeyed a direct order from my project manager.  I wonder why that is?

[Razgovory]

Why is this controversial?
Rape is when a man in a position of power gets a female to service him.
Not all rape involve direct physical violence.

If Clinton had been in the military, this thing with Monica Who? would have been definitively a rape and landed him in jail with a dishonorable discharge.

Look, just because the President of Israel rapes people doesn't mean that's standard.

[Tonitrus]

Why is this controversial?
Rape is when a man in a position of power gets a female to service him.
Not all rape involve direct physical violence.

If Clinton had been in the military, this thing with Monica Who? would have been definitively a rape and landed him in jail with a dishonorable discharge.

Meh, UCMJ actions are often pretty lax.  "Unprofessional relationship" charge at best, as Monica was a consensual relationship.  For an officer, maybe "conduct unbecoming".  If it even went that far.