More American workers sue employers for overtime pay

[marmar]

from USA Today, via Detroit Free Press:



Americans were pushed to their limit in the recession and its aftermath as they worked longer hours, often for the same or less pay, after businesses laid off almost 9 million employees.

Now, many are striking back in court. Since the height of the recession in 2008, more workers across the nation have been suing employers under federal and state wage-and-hour laws. The number of lawsuits filed last year was up 32% vs. 2008, an increase that some experts partly attribute to a post-downturn austerity that pervaded the American workplace and artificially inflated U.S. productivity.

Workers' main grievance is that they had to put in more than 40 hours a week without overtime pay through various practices:

•They were forced to work off the clock.

•Their jobs were misclassified as exempt from overtime requirements.

•Because of smartphones and other technology, work bled into their personal time.

"The recession (put) more pressure on businesses to squeeze workers and cut costs," says Catherine Ruckelshaus, legal co-director of the National Employment Law Project. If employers had to bear the actual expense of overtime, she says, they likely would have hired more workers in the economic recovery. ....................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.freep.com/article/20120416/BUSINESS07/120416004/More-American-workers-sue-employers-for-overtime-pay?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s

[xchrom]

1. du rec. nt

[Proud Liberal Dem]

2. Whatever happened

to an honest day's pay for an honest day (and sometimes, night and weekend's) work? If they worked more than what their job description, they need to be compensated. What our so-called "job creators" seem to be able to get away with on a regular basis is pretty stunning IMHO.

[Samantha]

5. Elaine Chau happened

Google her and that will tell you everything you need to know.

Sam

[Proud Liberal Dem]

6. I remember

I also remember that she is married to one of the biggest douchebags in the US Senate.

[Samantha]

8. Yes, she is

They (the Bush* administration) had a difficult time finding someone to fill the Department of Labor Secretary post, but she finally was selected. Believe it or not (I personally could not believe it myself), she early on took some of the regs governing the labor force, and made edits that I found on the Internet. When I started reading her edits, I knew immediately her goal was to help employers find ways to work non-exempt people without paying overtime or giving them benefits. She openly suggested ways to keep the number of hours worked per week so low, an employee would not qualify for health insurance and other standard benefits routinely offered for decades. In other words, what you see happening now in and to the American labor force was done at the coaxing of Elaine Chao. I am sure her work makes Mitch McConnell proud.

Those edits did not remain available to the public eye for long but I will never forget stumbling upon them and finding it unbelievable that the Secretary of Labor could make such an amateurish mistake. I also couldn't believe how she was trying to crush the American work force with such draconian changes.

Sam

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. Workers Have It Wrong

The meme via the GOP and corporate America is that workers have NO RIGHT to overtime pay. That is why Romney and the GOP will abolish the Fair Labor Standards Act. You are only entitled to what the free market pays. That is what this election is all about.
Overtime pay is OVER REGULATION and interferes with growing jobs.

[Seedersandleechers]

4. Back in the early 90's

my employer didn't think he had to pay us overtime because as he stated to us, " I don't make the required money to pay overtime." He was working us 12 hour days and making a lot of money. This was a doctors office and he was running real estate through the front office. So I did what I had to - I called the divison of labor. They came into the office and all hell broke loose. They combed all his records, time cards, etc., and told him that if he didn't pay us our back pay he would be fined even more. What came next is another story.

[Enrique]

7. what came next?

i want to hear the rest of the story, I want to hear how these things turn out.