Home › Forums › Open Discussion › Overtime pay…going…going…gone?
- This topic is empty.
-
AuthorPosts
-
March 23, 2015 at 5:52 pm #817040
wakefloodParticipantData Point: As of 2013, just 11 percent of salaried workers were overtime-eligible under current rules, compared with roughly 65 percent back in 1975.
Gee, I wonder where that productivity profit went? I’ll give you two guesses. One doesn’t count.
March 23, 2015 at 7:57 pm #823072
skeeterParticipantI’ve only been in the “working world” full time for 19 years. I don’t think overtime laws changed during that time – employers are not required to pay overtime to salaried workers. Was there a time in the 1970s/80s when employers were legally obligated to pay overtime to salaried workers?
I always assumed the “40 hour workweek” concept applied only to employees paid by the hour. I’m not aware that salaried workers were ever protected.
March 23, 2015 at 8:05 pm #823073
wakefloodParticipantSkeets, things started changing on that front in the early/mid 1980’s. I distinctly remember companies officially categorizing salaried workers into “exempt” and “non-exempt” roles.
(This was related to the Reagan era union busting and worker rights dismantling (see 401k’s vs. pensions) that gained speed throughout the 80’s and into the 90’s. but I digress.)
What it meant was companies were given Federally defined rules about who was an employee and who was a contractor and who could be “exempt” from standard OT 8 hr. days and who couldn’t. These guidelines, of course, were a foot in the door that allowed companies to continually reduce the ranks of folks who qualified for OT over 8hrs/day. Yes, OT used to usually be quantified DAILY for many. But after this, most couldn’t get OT until over 40hrs/wk., if at all. And consequently, those 40hrs. became harder to exceed as companies would substitute (sometimes) mandatory “comp time” to prevent having to pay OT. Eventually, as many folks as possible, got categorized as “salaried, exempt” (from OT).
The tilting of the playing field had begun in earnest.
March 23, 2015 at 8:14 pm #823074
wakefloodParticipantThis is also connected to the great disappearing act of wages for the American worker.
Productivity almost doubled in the 80’s and again in the 90’s partly because companies took away staff hours/employees, got the productivity from them using the processes outlined above, AND got the excess profit those free or reduced cost hours of work generated.
Worked out great for a some folks. Sr. management, big equity players, Goldman Sachs, etc. Average Joe & Jane? Not so much.
March 24, 2015 at 1:03 am #823075
JanSParticipantMarch 24, 2015 at 8:10 pm #823076
skeeterParticipantIt’s a really complex issue though. Worker productivity is up. Yet we still have labor shortages in parts of the country. So if productivity wasn’t up then I guess we’d have to work full time from age 12 to 75 just to get the work done.
I’d rather live in a country where we have to work some long hours and some weekends and be fully employed rather than live in a country with 24% unemployment (Spain.)
I know it’s not perfect. It’s a rat race. But at least there are opportunities out there for folks who have the desire and ability to work.
I don’t have the answer guys. But show me a country that does.
March 24, 2015 at 9:28 pm #823077
wakefloodParticipantGermany, Skeets.
You know why Spain has such high unemployment? They’ve been hammered for almost a decade with austerity measures, which depresses growth.
I hear you yelling already that it isn’t the whole reason and you’re right, but it’s been pushing the unemployment number into crazy heights for years now. It may have been not great before, but it’s horrendous now.
But Skeets, what I really want to focus on is demand. Demand isn’t just half the equation, it IS the equation. Unemployment is 100% without it.
How do you drive demand? Ask Henry Ford, or any of a thousand economists, including Robert Reich.
You use the tools available (that have ALWAYS been available until they get removed from the toolboxes via BAD trade agreements) to help balance the advantages outside countries use to leverage their BAD conditions against us or other modern economies that give a damn about the planet. See Germany. High import tariffs, high union membership, high quality products, high employment, high exports, strong environmental rules, thriving economy.
Are they perfect? Nope. Do they have a more fair economy with high quality of life and infrastructure poised to kick our ass for the next 50 years. Yes.
Look back at when we were the economic envy of the world, post war. We had the GI Bill, very high infrastructure spending, tons of growth and VERY high taxes on the upper incomes. And we were the most successful economy in the history of the world.
Some say that can’t work anymore in the era of globalization. It can and does, it takes merely the will to reimpose balance.
March 25, 2015 at 3:13 am #823078
waynsterParticipantHate to say it theses big company’s little ones too.. just don’t like paying for more then 40 hours a week under the feds rules they can include in white collar workers overtime in their weekly salary’s … in the past a lot of theses corporations who still could afford it even today payed overtime to theses workers oh my lets not cut out our shareholders.. oh no so unless your union your f—ed for overtime pay….
-
AuthorPosts
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.