If you are working, are you being forced to work over-time?

[hedgehog]

A friend is working 12 hours, 7 days a week. We're wondering how many employers out there are putting off hiring by demanding over-time.

[Myrina]

1. The opposite.

My company refuses to pay OT, so we have to shut down when we hit 40 hours. And if we can't get all our crap done in a 40 hour week, that shows up on our review.

[uppityperson]

2. Last place I worked refused to pay OT but kept cutting staff so we'd have to work

unpaid for a couple hours a day. Job burn out city.

[hedgehog]

7. I'd put that into the required OT column, especially because you don't get paid!

[guitar man]

3. I wish

I'm paid hourly and I only WISH I could get some OT, I'd take all of it I could get right now. :(

[lunatica]

4. I welcome overtime work which is rare since I don't get a great salary.

[ejpoeta]

5. my husbands company continually says they want NO overtime.

they switched schedules to have straight time on saturday and sunday so he has scheduled day off monday and tuesday and works w/t/f/s/s/m/t oncall and working straight time during the day. he has to answer dispatches calls at all hours (he got in trouble once because he was sleeping and didn't hear the phone). he took this week off even though they could not really afford to be without him because there are only three guys in his area and one was off monday and tueday on sceduled day off before being oncall. last week he had to go work overtime on a couple of calls even though they keep saying they don't want overtime. they expect these three guys to be able to do the work of five, keep up with their stock that needs to be returned, do all this other stuff. and it is not possible with three guys. they will not hire anyone else for the area even though a guy just left for a job somewhere else.

[Mike 03]

6. Kick and Rec, this is the most important kind of thing we can be discussing, IMO. NT

[MindPilot]

8. I can put in as much or as little as I want.

But the workload is such that I usually end up with about 10 hours of OT a week. The company absolutely refuses to hire any more people for my group although they are hiring like crazy for other positions.

They will hire fifty engineers but no support people.

[AC_Mem]

9. I'm working overtime

its not mandatory, but necessary and I'm paid for it.

I guess I shouldn't complain but I'm exhausted. There is nobody to delegate anything to, so I have to do it.

[Skittles]

10. I work about 52 hours a week

[Statistical]

11. Hmm interesting antecdotal evidence.

Seems like many of my salaried peers are in the same boat.

I have always had to work more than 40 hours. 40-45 on average. The salary and benefits are good so I don't mind. Even if you calculated out what OT would be it is a good base wage. However in the last year my hours worked have slowly risen. It went from 40-45 on average and maybe 50 once in a blue moon to 45-50 on average and sometimes peaks of 55. Now it is pretty much 50 solid every week.

If one took all those hours (plus my peers in the dept) it likely would add 2 positions. I have talked to management about splitting my position into a analyst and developer positions but "the economy is weak to expand payroll right now".

[SoCalNative]

12. Not yet

but I do work OT and get paid for it if the workload warrants.

Of course we lost one of the people in our group due to layoff at the end of September and they will not be replaced.

[Lucky 13]

13. After a LONG period of unemployment, I am now salaried and working 40 hours per week

Working on an issue I am passionate about. Fighting the good fight everyday.

[mascarax]

14. Not just overtime but laid-off employees aren't replaced but work remains

the same. After 2 years I know many who continue to get pressured to do the work of >1 with no or little salary increase.
Edit to add: talking more about salaried positions so no overtime pay involved. Am sure there are plenty who are pressured to work extra ("just be thankful you have a job") and not get overtime pay.

[SocialistLez]

15. I'd love to work some overtime. A cousin of mine worked a 14 hour shift recently.

She was happy her hours picked up but she payed a huge price.
Once she got off work, she only had about 8 hours (if that) until she had to be at work AGAIN for another long shift.

I told her it was exploitation.
She said she's just trying to survive.

I consider myself lucky I'm still living at home and I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from.

My hours are capped at 20 hours a week. Every now and then I get lucky but for the most part my hours are capped.

[progressoid]

16. Self employed. Working more and making less than a decade ago.

[Hannah Bell]

17. it's called sweating the workers. that's where the productivity growth is coming from.

Capitalists are always trying to get workers to work longer.... But even with the 40 hour work week, there are plenty of ways to get workers to work longer: limit their vacation and sick time, make them work longer anyway and threaten to fire them if they complain (that really works), or you could even hire other workers to work a night shift. I mean, you gotta realize that while your workers are at home sleeping and eating all of your constant capital is just sitting in an empty workplace being totally useless...

Both of these approaches – hiring more workers or making them work longer- are effective in increasing the total (or absolute) surplus value extracted from workers. In times of expansion in often makes sense to increase outlays on v. But this strategy is much more powerful when combined with a tactic that changes the ratio of S to V so that workers are producing more surplus value. There are many ways to do this.

Let’s say that slashing wages isn’t possible for whatever reason. Maybe the unions are too strong. Maybe the unions have gotten a minimum wage law passed in your country. Maybe unemployment is low. Maybe you require skilled labor and there’s a shortage of it…. but for whatever reason you can’t lower wages. What can you do?

Make them work harder and more efficiently. This raises S relative to V, thus raising the rate of exploitation. There are many ways to do this. The most obvious is to just force your workers to work faster- set production quotas, threaten them, abuse them, limit bathroom breaks, etc.

http://kapitalism101.wordpress.com/diy-exploitation/

[knitter4democracy]

18. I'm a parapro and have been required to go to teacher meetings.

The principal wants me to be a teacher but not pay me to be a teacher and finally got a smack-down yesterday from the higher-ups who told him that I cannot be asked or required to go to meetings I'm not paid for (as I have for almost a year, since he made it clear I had to). In telling me that, he followed it up by saying that I'd miss really important info for my job if I don't go, though. Ugh.

I'm looking for a real teaching job.

[LWolf]

19. No, not FORCED.

I don't work by the hour; my contract specifies the hours in a work day, and I'm expected to get the job done in that amount of time. If I don't, I'm expected to keep going until I do. I've taken some salary cuts in the last 2 years, and my health insurance has increased by 30% just this year. To offset those cuts, I'm working extra hours after work, for which I get paid an hourly wage which amounts to about 2/3 of what my daily pay divided by 8 hours would be.

So...I'm working 9 - 10 hours a day to keep up with my contractual duties; very few of us manage to complete those in 8 hours a day. The entire system depends on us working extra hours for free every day. Then I've taken on extra after work duties for the hourly salary, putting me at work for 11-12 hours on those days. There are other opportunities to make extra $$; stipends and committee work. I do some of those, too. I need the money.

The bottom line? I work extra hours for free each day, then I work extra hours for less than my regular wage. Hours over and above my regular work day are paid at a LOWER rate than the regular work day.

I'm not forced. I can decline. I just can't maintain my budget on regular pay cuts and rising health insurance costs, so I work the extra hours for less. That way I can still make the mortgage payment.

I'm a teacher. Yes, a public employee.

[tavalon]

20. Luckily, I'm union

It's a weak union, but even so, everything is spelled out in black and white.

[cbdo2007]

21. Well if I didn't work over time our company would go out of business...

and I would have to find a sh*tty job somewhere doing something stupid, so I wouldn't say I'm "forced" but that is just what its like running a small business is you have to put in extra hours ALL the time.

[bigwillq]

22. Not forced, but some weeks

I work more hours than I am paid for. And some weeks, I work 6 or even seven days, not full days, but still doing some sort of work related job on my day off. Nature of the business I am in, though.

[hootinholler]

23. I was fired because I didn't meet production expectations.

IOW I wouldn't work more than 40 a week at will salary.

-Hoot

[Codeine]

24. I like overtime.

:shrug: Who bitches about time-and-a-half?