Question about the 39 hour work week.

[DaveJ]

I know somebody who works for one of these places who don't want to provide any benefits, so they have here working part time at full time hours.

I know she has been working weekends a lot in addition to the 5 weekdays, and I know she has often gone over 40 hours a week. But, her employers go back on forth on their policy. Sometimes they demand no overtime, by at least half the time they need work done so badly that they have her work overtime anyway.

She's been there almost 1 1/2 years now and is starting to get tired of her treatment. There have been a few times she left early (yet after her 'scheduled' hours).

Now, management is confronting her about it. A prior manager got fired, who was only there 6 months, so the old backstabbers are back in charge. They called her into a meeting. In the meeting, she was starting to get so fed up, she let out her frustrations, told them they are 'using' her, that what they are doing is 'illegal', and how she has been promised a full time status for over a year now. Here scheduled hours are something like 7 to 1 but they have her work until 4:30 anyway, with a half hour lunch of course (too little time to go anywhere else to eat -- of course).

I know the obvious thing for her to do is to get another job that treats her better.

But I wonder what other options there are.

We're in the Chicago area, but this company is operated out of some other state, like South Carolina I think. Jobs in the city treat people well, buy I've noticed a lot of companies, especially the ones out in the suburbs, are operated from afar, and often have little respect for their people's working conditions.

Is there any limit to how long a company can get away with making their employees work 39 hours and deny full time benefits? If they fire her under these circumstances, would that make any case regarding unemployment benefits eligibility? Does the fact that she's often worked over 40 hours make any difference?