The tussle over overtime - Oracle

[dArKeR]

 GABEL, 54, MAKES good money traveling the country teaching customers how to use Oracle’s database software. Including incentive pay, Oracle trainers earn from $60,000 to $100,000 a year, he said. But the long hours and time on the road have taken a toll on his health and personal life, he says, and finally this year Gabel and a colleague initiated a class-action lawsuit seeking unpaid overtime wages from the past several years. Their lawyer says the suit, covering about 500 workers, could be worth $75 million.
       “I’m not complaining about my pay so much — that’s not the issue,” Gabel said. “The issue is the time that we’re having to work for that pay.” Gabel calculates that on an hourly basis he is making about the same wage as if he had stuck with an earlier career as a public school teacher.
       Gabel’s lawsuit is just one of dozens that have been filed against employers in recent years seeking unpaid overtime wages. In a landmark 2001 case, a jury ordered Farmers Insurance Exchange to pay $90 million after a court found the company had failed to properly compensate 2,400 claims adjusters. The company is appealing the verdict, but Radio Shack, Taco Bell, Starbucks, Pacific Bell and other companies have settled similar cases, paying out tens of millions of dollars in back wages and legal fees.

http://www.msnbc.com/news/952421.asp?0cv=CB10

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