Only problem I see is how many of these are salaried employees. By working 11 hrs a day, the company is saving in the long run over hourly employees who get overtime pay. Most day I put in at least 8.5 hrs a day. How ever there are days that I do up to 10 hours and there is not compensation for that.

My experience is that people who "work" that many hours do so because they want to. So if they're depressed, it's not from too many hours at work.

This is how US productivity is at the highest levels its been in history. And, Companies know that if you're not willing to work the extras hours, the person who replaces you will. I think a lot of people who work those hours, do so out of fear, not desire.

i work 12 hour days for two reasons:

1) if i don't someone else will

2) despite making the argument that another person should be hired, i was given even more work without bringing in new help

11 hours-- not even a Half-Day

I have been doing 10 and 11 hour days for 35+ years. Hell, I was doing 10 and 11 hr days when Carter was in the White House. As a Salaried Engineer, that has always been the norm for every company I have worked for during my career. This is nothing new, why has it taken so long to be of interest to the press?

Up until 2008 you were a tool and a sucker for working that number of hours for anything less than $200,000.00 a year. Those are Doctor hours.

@Arrrrrgh -- if your experience is that people who "work" (your quotes) more than 11 hours a day want to do so, your experience is quite different that my own and that of everyone I know. My entire dept, as well as the majority of people in my company, work at least 11 hours/day and it's not from a desire to do anything but keep our jobs. We went thru 3-4 rounds of layoffs and cutbacks a few years back and almost every dept in the company is operating what might be termed short-handed; workload is doubled and in some cases, tripled. But people remember the lay-offs, how it felt to wonder if you were next, and to hear from former colleagues how long it was taking to find a new job. And in this economy, no one is taking any chances. When I go to conferences with people outside of my company, I hear the same things from them -- long hours that are expected, and no end in sight. And as another poster put it, these are salaried jobs so there is no compensatory reward.

Unfortunately, this has become the new "normal" and there is no immediate incentive for a company to change. They may get an incentive though; hiring is picking up in our industry, and a lot of people are looking for jobs outside since they feel taken for granted. Not only will the new people hired to replace those leaving need to ramp up, they won't t have the same fear of being laid off so probably won't be willing to work long hours. So there could be a double hit to productivity. It's too bad my employer, and so many others, are being short-sighted, thinking that this cycle of 11 hour days from their employees will never end.

It's interesting that you put work in quotes in your statement; it could be construed as if you don't think people are actually working productively during their entire long work day. From where I sit, nothing could be farther from the truth. They are certainly working. It's one of the reasons that my company has posted 8 consecutive quarters of record profits. We just wish they'd free up some of that cash and give us a break by hiring new people.

Lizzie,

Based on the United States DOL's definition, are you sure that your position is supposed to be exempt from overtime? Remember - salaried and exempt are NOT the same, and just because the comany say you are exempt doesn't mean you actually are.

(See http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/minwage.htm as well as my post below.)

Funny thing is that the tax burden was higher 40 years ago. The only thing that has changed is the fact that private businesses are paying less.

I don't think that there's a single true statement in there. The problem is not, and has never been the government. The problem is greedy and selfish people, and the braindead zombies who support their attack on common sense government regulation.

Say it proudly. UNION.

Hell no. What the government does not take, the union does.

I'd called them armed and pi$$ed off.

Unions take away any incentive to do good work because there's no difference between the schelp who does the minimum to get by and the awesome rockstar who's 10x better than everyone else.

Unions are NOT the answer for white collar industries, unless you want to dramatically lower the quality of American workers.

Ah! That's a trick question. I was going to say union but you included "hard working" in your description. I almost fell for it.

Unions were good in the beginning because the government wasn't caring for worker safety and they were the only stop gap. Being that said if Republicans get rid of all the safety regulations that some want to do then Unions once again provide the same thing.

So I don't care if theres no Unions are as long there is somebody looking over the companies back and making sure they don't abuse there workers....

Engineers, accountants, lawyers, doctors, managers and other professionals are currently "exempt" from workplace protections. They are not required to be paid overtime.

But there are lots of people who work in corporate environments that are none of the above, like IT people, who have been misclassified.

Being exempt or not is not based on a job title it is related to how much independence you have in your work. Basically if you have any control over what you do from minute to minute you are exempt. It could be as simple as them having flexible start and end times and that could make all employees exempt.

Go ahead and complain. They will make you non exempt. They will cut your hourly rate low enough it does not matter. When high priority project come up you will not be given them you will get the dirt work. Then when it is slow they will send you home and you can now value your free time and realize you have much less money in your pocket

John, go to the DOL website! They list JOB TITLES! And a lot of these job titles are NOT jobs where you have the sort of flexibility you are describing. For example, a movie theater employee does not exactly "own the world".

BTW, if they are working you 55 hours a week, there are no slow days. Also, if I were to complain to management and the DOL, ALL of the people in the same situation would end up being non-exempt. BTW, non-exempt and hourly are not the same - a salaried person can make overtime, per the DOL.

If you are a person who works in management or HR, YOU and the likes of YOU are the problem.

Will-1091847, this is a bit off topic, but i'm an airline employee- i work at Headquarters in Quality Assurance as a salaried employee.. Most all employees in the company @ HQ are salaried employees.. i've never really been able to decide if I'm exempt or not. I have a boss, i cannot make decisions without going thru the boss and getting his appproval first.., but i'm technically an airline employee- has anyone found details on this??

Hi airline employee,

An employment lawyer could probably tell you better, but the DOL simply says "railroad and airline employees" are exempt. The most obvious examples are airline pilots and stewardesses, but whether or not this extends to the office workers who are at the HQ is a grey area that I bet could be contested in a court of law under the right circumstances. Or perhaps not...

After a quick Google search, I found this:

http://www.wageandhourcounsel.com/2008/12/articles/meal-and-rest-periods/trial-court-rules-airline-employee-not-entitled-to-protection-under-california-wage-and-hour-laws/

Airline employee, look through you state and federal wage and hour regulations to find out whether you are considered and exempt employee.

It can take awhile to locate but that's where your answer lies. Good luck :)

How true! Let's not forget your co-worker is sick and you are the only one available so you HAVE to come to work. Not to mention we can't find any "qualified" nurses to supplement our already short-staffed unit. I just finished working 6-12's and am really tired. I haven't had any family time in days. I have 2 days off before going back. Overtime does not make up for lack of family time or for my eternal fatigue. You could say I am bummed.

There isn't a shortage of RN's, there is a shortage of RN's who are willing to work under the conditions that a lot of health care facilities, or home health companies,or hospice companies want to subject us to.

One of the most common tactics used by someone trying to manipulate us into letting them take advantage of us is,"You are the ONLY ONE who can possibly do this." No, you're not .If they didn't hire enough staff because they don't want to recruit, train and then pay wages to another person that's not your problem it's them being manipulative trying to save a few bucks by taking advantage of their good employees.

I was hospitalized last year for some major lung cancer surgery, and was in the hospital for nine days. I am acutely aware of the understaffing problems in hospitals as a result of that. The only time I got out of bed was to go to the bathroom, and to even do that required assistance. The doctors all told me that I needed to get up and walk around or I might launch another VTE resulting in a PE and DVT like happened right after surgery. The problem is that I was hooked up to so many hoses and leads that a nurse had to help me get set up with all this crap hung off the wheeled pole for the IV. Every time I mentioned to the nurse that the doctors wanted me to walk, they said that they would, as soon as they took care of their other duties. Because of the short staff, this never happened, and I was put at greater risk of another post-operative pulmonary embolism and/or DVT. I did survive, but it is entirely conceivable that I could have had another clot, this time a massive PE, that might have killed me, all for the simple fact that there was nobody around to unhook me from the fixed connections and set me up with a rolling connection so I could walk. I feel sorry for the nurses who have to work like this, and if it weren't for the nurse's aides or nursing assistants, or whoever they were (god bless them), I wouldn't have even been able to get out of bed to use the bathroom. It's apparently only going to get worse.

There are hospitals that staff adequately to meet patient needs. Patients and healthcare workers who are considering employment just need to do their homework.

If people flock to the healthcare providers who do business ethically by having adequate staff, and if consumers and would-be employees boycott the ones who would rip off and endanger customers and employees to try to make a few more dollars,and if people are considerate enough of others to use technology to communicate about healthcare providers who staff adequately and also those who are unsafe with their staffing or with the caliber of staff that they hire-then it will be a win-win situation for consumers and good healthcare providers. The ones who are not legit will either get the message and improve or they will eventually disappear.

kcstrawberryblonde,

That sounds really good in theory, but what if your employment options are not that broad? Sure, if I lived in the city of Philadelphia where there are more hospitals than men named John, absolutely you could shop around for work. On the other hand, if you live in a smaller city with one or two hospitals, your options are a little more limited.

I am a degreed engineer and have worked in the construction industry for thirty years. The blue collar union employees who implement my designs and carry out my instructions work under strict work rules that limit them to 8 hours on the job per day WITH paid breaks. When Union employees exceed 40 hours per week they receive time and a half for overtime. As a result, many of my "subordinates" earn substantially higher pay than I do.

At the same time I frequently work as much as 70 hours per week with no worker protections and no guarantees of breaks because I face deadlines. I receive no guaranteed workplace protections or overtime. I understand that the requirements for "professionals" are different than the requirements for blue collar workers, and that professionals are not "interchangeable" parts that you can just relieve on the job temporarily with another worker in the middle of a project. However, employers could be required to provide comp time in lieu of overtime. I have had employers that did this voluntarily -- but were not required to do so. I believe it is time to require workplace protections for ALL employees and have NO "exempt" categories for workers.

The difference, expatdownunda, is that your skills are portable and rare while the blue collar workers' skills are not. If you decide you want to chuck it all and do something else with your life, your education and experience makes it far easier than the dude who's been doing the blue collar job for 30 years and lacking education and transferrable skills.

This is the key difference that most people don't seem to understand. Unions protect those who either have skills that are highly specialized and identical (like Nurses or Teachers) or skills that are easily replaced (like construction workers).

So expatdownunda should be penalized because he worked hard and invested in his education?

That doesn't make much sense.

When the exempt professionals finally decide to go on strike, EVERYBODY will be out of work!

Yep, that is exactly what I was saying. Actually, if they are working any overtime, then they are probably earning more than you are in absolute terms, and they have never gone through the expensive training that you went through. They are not still paying off their college loans.

I worked in IT and some of the people I worked with were exempt from overtime. They were just higher ranking techs, there was really no reason for them to be overtime exempt. They did make about 15% more than us other techs, but were also required to go do things like travel and set up conferences and be crazy busy for 14 hour days. Some of us figured out pretty fast that we did not want to get promoted.

And you will still be EXACTLY where you are getting paid EXACTLY what you do now 20 years from now. I would fire you for lack of ambition and outsource your job to india...where they can hire 4 idiots to try to do your job.

When people move into exempt at first you generally take a pay cut but it does not take long to make much more. IT is one of few fields it is easy to make over $100,000 and not be a manager or be REQUIRED to have some college degree. If you are ambitious it is one of the few areas there is still high demand and the high skill positions do not get outsourced... well not as much

John, people like you are what is wrong with the world.

Its not that we lack ambition. We just have ambitions for things in life besides slaving for some company that 5 years down the road will cut us loose and kick us out the door. There is more to life than money, like our families and happiness. What good is to make the salary of a big time manager if you work 60 hours a week and are never home with your family? What will you do when you make all of that money, but your kids barely know you? What about when your wife, who feels emotionally neglected, leaves you and takes half of your money with her? Then what? Time to enter a midlife crisis and be a bigger jerk to people than you already have been. What about when you give 25 years to a company and then they cut you loose in the next round of layoffs? All of that loyalty and hard work rewarded with 6 months severance and an insincere "thanks"...

What about the day you realize that your life spent chasing money and power in the corporate world has been a waste of time, but now you are in your late 50s and its too late for a do-over? What a sad day that is.

amen

So, the two kids in college - have they ever actually met you, or are you just some guy they have heard about?

In all seriousness though, what do you do that has that kind of schedule?

Electrical maintenance. This is the hours that go with the job. I started doing it right out of high school. Money's good and the benefits are great. With so many people out of work, I try not to woory about the hours.

Is your kids' psychotherapy paid for?

kcstrawberryblonde,

He can pay for his kids bills and maybe much more from what he has earned by working hard. He doesn't collect welfare or complain of not finding work. And I think that's admireable, smart and respect-worthy. But what would a person like you appreciate someone else's hard work or persistence amidst tough times? You can pass snobby remarks and give the phrase "dumb blondes" true meaning. Idiot!

Dateless

Maybe you should read what the 2004 Regulations actually did.

First up is the "salary-basis" test. To be exempt from overtime, workers must be paid a set salary, not an hourly wage. This has long been the rule under federal overtime law. The new rules don't change this requirement.

The second criterion, called the "salary-level" test, has been amended. In order to be exempt from overtime, the new rules require that employees earn a minimum salary of $455 a week, or $23,660 a year. That's triple the prior minimum salary of $155 a week, or $8,060 a year.

White-collar employees who earn more than $100,000 a year are automatically exempt from overtime pay under the new law. That wasn't the case before, although many high-income workers have been exempt for other reasons besides their income level.

The third test is where the rules get considerably more complicated -- and controversial. The final prong is called the "duties" test. It tries to establish eligibility based on the type of work an employee performs every day. Under federal law, a worker whose job is deemed "administrative," "professional," or "executive" in nature does not qualify for overtime. The categories themselves won't change.

Instead, the new rules aim to clarify the type of work that qualifies as administrative, professional and executive. For example, under the executive exemption, a fast food manager must be involved in key staffing decisions like hiring, firing and promoting in order to be deemed ineligible for overtime. Previously, that manager had to have the actual power to hire and fire employees in order to be considered exempt.

Here is the link. Now just how do those changes caused high Unemployment and salaried worker burnout?

http://money.cnn.com/2004/08/23/news/economy/overtime/index.htm