US Senator Proposes Bill To Eliminate Overtime For IT Workers 1167
New submitter Talisman writes "Kay Hagan (D) from North Carolina has introduced a bill to the Senate that would eliminate overtime pay for IT workers."
The bill is targeted at salaried IT employees and those whose hourly rate is $27.63 or more. It seems comprehensive in its description of what types of IT work qualify — everything from analysis and consulting to design and development to training and testing. The bill even uses "work related to computers" as one of the guidelines.
I am planning to move to NC (Score:4, Interesting)
And if this idjit is still there, I know I am voting THEM out. What a maroon.
IT I$ CHEAP (Score:1, Interesting)
Why IT workers? (Score:5, Interesting)
IT work already has a terrible education:pay ratio and the pay is nothing special in relative terms, that's a strange sector to target...could it have something to do with outsourcing?
Re:why? (Score:1, Interesting)
I work for the government and we get paid OT and comp time.
What? IT Workers GET OVERTIME? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seriously? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm no democrat but... (Score:5, Interesting)
Already there? (Score:3, Interesting)
i think this might be a good idea if.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I am going to take a page out of the great depression. the Kellogg cereal company during the great depression lowered the max hours one of their workers could work from 40 to 30 or so. while the people who were working at first did not like the lowering of their income they did like the effects it had on the city around the plant. kellogg to fill the gap hired more workers who in turn only worked the shorter amount of time, but it helped prop up the rest of the city. costs of food and the like there went down and even though the average income went down the people there including the people who had their hours cut ended up liking it. especially the increased time with their family. if they eliminate overtime and the position had scheduled overtime before they should then fill the gap by hiring someone else.
The U.S. senate decides on overtime pay? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I'm not from the U.S. I might have misunderstood something here, but does the U.S. senate really have the authority to change in employment contracts for the worse?
Where I live, the government can enforce things like minimum wages, but if my contract includes overtime pay, then the only way it can disappear is if my employer and I renegotiate the contract.
Karl Marx nailed this one (Score:5, Interesting)
His theory of capitalism was, in a nutshell, that an employer's goal was to increase profit by increasing the amount they could make their workers work without paying them anything extra. Which is, of course, exactly what is being codified in this law.
Consider some widget that cost $300 to make $250 in materials and $50 for 1 worker to work 6 hours on it. But our capitalist wants to make more money, so he makes his worker work 12 hours instead of 6 (which the worker accepts, because being unemployed is so much worse), so now he has $600 worth of widgets, which are now $500 in materials, $50 in labor, and $50 in profit.
Regardless of what you think about communism, Marx's theories of capitalism need to be taken seriously, because the guy was predicting, in the 1870's, a lot of the economic behavior we see today.
tell us that place you worked (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hurray.. ? (Score:5, Interesting)
(Posting Anon as IBM employee. Opinions are my own, I don't speak for them etc etc)
I've worked for IBM in two countries. I have been paid overtime in neither one. The flip side of this is that I haven't been expected to work ovetime.
Sure, I've put in a few extra hours at crunch time, but nobody forced me to. And crunch time means just that - a couple of weeks before an important deadline, if there's something critical needing fixing. Doesn't even happen every release, or every year.
As far as I can tell, Big Blue respect the whole concept of work/life balance, and having people well rested and working sensible hours. I doubt very much they would have lobbied for this.
Re:The U.S. senate decides on overtime pay? (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, if you're an EVIL Republican, then they don't really have that power.
On the other hand, if you're a FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE Democrat, then they have the power to do anything they damn well please.
More realistically, if they can get the House and President to go along with it, yes, they can do that, until and unless someone brings a lawsuit as far as the Supreme Court to overturn the law in question.
While there are Constitutional limits on the government in the USA, they've been increasingly ignored since FDR was President, and are routinely flouted today.
Re:Why IT workers? (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, there's two ways you can look at this...
a.) The unions don't like that we have no union, so they lobbied to do this to "encourage" the labor force to unionize...
b.) The fact that we have no union makes them feel like they can eliminate overtime and get away with it...
I'm a developer, and I've been in a union (non-it work) before. It wasn't better for me or the company. I was far less motivated to do anything and I threw away part of my paycheck to some guy who was only motivated to do less.
To be perfectly honest though, I haven't worked an hour of overtime in the past 10 years.
Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score:3, Interesting)
As far as I know, Indiana has had this law for ALL workers over a certain wage, for a long time. What they found out, is if they don't pay overtime, they just don't work it, which means they need more workers, so it's cheaper to just pay the overtime.
Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score:5, Interesting)
Harry Reid (D) sponsored President Obama's Job bill [govtrack.us] in the Senate, then voted AGAINST it.
This is done to bring the bill up to a vote, so it can be voted down.
Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not necessarily that they suck at it; it's that there's a much larger number of job seekers that the employers can play off each other. Plus they can refuse to raise their offers knowing that none of their competitors wants to do so either.
These days things are getting to be more like they were prior to unionization. They aren't as bad, there are still workplace rights that unions fought for, but there's always a lot of GOP pressure to undo as many workplace rights as possible.
Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes and individuals who aren't already in exempt positions (all high level IT positions are exempt already) don't really have much leverage for negotiation on an individual basis. Low level positions are on the wrong side of the many-to-one ratio with there many employees/applicants and only one employer. One-to-one, all else being equal, you have equivalent leverage. The minute there are two positions the employers leverage doubles while the employees/applicants leverage stays the same.
Unions help to restore the balance by consolidating the employees in order to bring it back to one-to-one.
Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score:4, Interesting)
And when no company offers overtime compensation, you'll just starve?
They have to pay more than minimum wage because they have been paying more than minimum wage for a long time now. Quality workers expect it.
They have not been paying much overtime. Most companies illegally offer flex-time instead of paying overtime. This bill removes the overtime requirement, meaning it will also remove the flex-time requirement.
As a salaried, exempt, IT employee, I haven't ever been offered overtime, nor will any employers consider overtime during negotiations. This bill extends that situation to hourly IT employees.
Re:why does congress hate free markets? (Score:5, Interesting)
IT workers propose bill requiring citizen referendum on any congressional pay raises
Better still, propose a bill requiring members of congress to serve 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year, with full accountability of their whereabouts and activities during those periods.
Re:why does congress hate free markets? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every elected official should be paid exactly the median income of their constituents. Then to get more pay they have to raise their constituents' incomes first.
Plus any elected official should be paid to retire instead of running for reelection. Whatever they'd be paid for the term if they won, like 2 years for a House rep or 4 years for a governor, they'd get paid all at once to retire instead.
This isn't the first time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, this is basically the #2 punch in the set. Years back....IT guys could easily be classified at non-exempt, and paid hourly....and get 1.5 time for OT.
The Feds didn't like this...specifically for their contractors...the guys just plain worked too much.
So, IT guys were reclassified as 'professionals' just like doctors, lawyers, managers..etc.
However, still...on contracts...you CAN get straight time for OT hours. There are usually hoops to jump through to get all this approved by the gov. in advance of work...PITA.
I guess they're wanting to close this one off too.
I haven't understood why they do it for private sector and for gov contracting....maybe they have to do it for everyone and can't target just the federal contractors.
It doesn't seem fair, like you said...that they can target one class of worker, but this isn't the first time it has happened.
One thing they may be looking at...as we continue forward, with more and more tech taking over in ALL business....most everything is related to IT in some fashion...and they are maybe trying in broad fashion to use this to cut costs.
Of course, let's target the guys who actually do work...rather than the management.
Re:Nothing new here (Score:5, Interesting)
You are right, we don't have an absolute free market.
Above I said government screws things up by putting their thumb on the scale. To clarify, I don't consider labor laws to be altering the scales, but to be changing the rules.
Unions served the purpose of getting the "rules changed". With OSHA, a minimum wage, and other labor laws, the grievances of unions became law.
IMHO - Unions have served their purpose. In non right-to-work states, they're more like an extortion racket who hold the keys to good paying jobs. You have to pay them a kick-back out of every check for a job it seems to me. I'm sure some people appreciate the benefits the Union provides, but to force people to be a member? Seems damn near legalized organized crime to me.
Re:This isn't the first time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Time Warner and Cox tried to get all of their headend engineers and line tech qualified as IT workers so they could make them all exempt and voila, no more huge OT checks for being hip deep in a muddy hole trying to splice fiber.
Luckily, the unions jumped all over this and TW and Cocks quietly rolled back that idea. I guess they finally found another patsy.
Re:I am planning to move to NC (Score:4, Interesting)
If government didn't stick its nose into this kind of business interference, businesses wouldn't need to lobby government about the kind of interference. When government no longer sees itself as limited, then businesses and others have to form lobbies in order to try to protect themselves from the government.
Waddaminite.
Your theory is that if we didn't regulate business so much, then they wouldn't seek government protection?
Here's my theory. Businesses spend money where they see a potential return on investment. If they think they can use money to increase profitability, they'll do so. Nothing wrong with it. That's Capitalism. That's the American Way. Spending money to get favorable legislation is just a particular case. Businesses have done it since there have been businesses and governments.
One of the reasons government expands is because businesses successfully lobby for legislation they think will increase profitability.
Re:This isn't the first time... (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. That whole thing about "network" is what will screw the cable workers. Most systems now use a DNCS, or Digital Network Control System, about half of which are provided by Cisco acquisition Scientific Atlanta.
At the heart of the headend is a big Solaris machine that handles provisioning for all of the cable boxes and acts like a supervisor blade in a large router. From there, the individual set-top boxes are addressed via IP on a hybrid fiber-coax network, making nearly every cable TV system in the United States a large network.
Headend engineers are already pretty much IT people, but the line techs have clung to their non-exempt blue collar status for years and it costs the cable companies out the wazoo. They've tried to enforce no-overtime policies, but their customer service rates and rate at which they can install new customers plummets.
This isn't the first time the industry has gone out of it's way to screw line techs either. About 8 years ago, Time Warner, Adelphia, Cox, and Comcast all, right around the same time, put policies in place to prevent workers over a certain weight from being certified to climb poles or operate in bucket trucks. The restrictions were based only on weight, not accounting for height, build, or experience, so tall muscular guys were being pulled off of poles that short fat guys were allowed to climb. The effect of this was that fewer and fewer line techs were allowed to do the work that paid a premium and were stuck in jobs like customer premise installation which had some very strict hour restrictions. Again, voila, less overtime.
Re:Plead the 27th (Score:4, Interesting)
I have been in a riot. The Occupy people and the cops have not been in a riot. To the degree that the beatings and shootings by the cops have come in something resembling a riot, you are correct that the cops have started it - every time. So where does that leave the idea that the cops won't beat and shoot their fellow citizens for no good reason? These cops don't just get told to start shooting civilians. They are told the civilians are a threat to order and property, that they're commies/nazis, that they're the spoiled college kids who get all the breaks while the cops slave for them in the streets stopping criminals, or that they're the criminals themselves. And evidently enough already believe that to beat them mercilessly.
There are plenty of people in the various armed forces in America who will take that even further, especially if the people they're beating start shooting back. That is what we're talking about in this thread: whether the people who talk about "defending liberty with the ammo box" would or could. In fact they would not, or they'd have been out with the guns they wore to Teabagger rallies during the Bush/Cheney years when the Patriot and other acts actually stripped their freedoms, not just when a half Black Democrat seemed possible to become the president, and even more when he did so. Or when the cops started beating and shooting Americans peacefully demonstrating against the thieving power Wall Street has protected by the government - instead these people side with the cops and vilify the demonstrators.
The gun fetishists are the primary target for the fear and division that gets people out to polls to vote for "Conservative" politicians who legalize and fund force to control Americans. The point is not whether they are the reason we have that kind of police state, but that they are part of its cause rather than any inhibition to it as they loudly claim. Likewise the flood of guns in America that their legislators approve is used by the police for the escalated tactics they sometimes do need to control armed gangs and armed individuals, but which is then turned on even nonviolent political demonstrations. This was all perfectly clear back when just the soap box, the jury box and the ballot box were sufficient to protect us, and as they failed the ammo box could have been invoked but never was; the gun fetishists sided with the enemy. To expect them now to succeed with the ammo box, the least likely way to protect freedom (instead of provoking ever more severe police states) is to defy everything that we actually know, in favor of the rhetoric of people who have only made things worse.