Reply #12: I've seen it happen, in a way, and it's a beautiful thing.

[Mariana]

A company I worked for in the 1990's had been running the plant Monday through Friday and decided to start running production seven days a week. They said they were going to hire a weekend crew, but in the meantime production workers were required to work 12 hours of overtime every second weekend. This didn't affect me because I was in maintenance, not production, and we already worked 24/7 (with adequate personnel to do so).

This went on for more than a YEAR with no sign of a weekend crew materializing. People's home lives were wrecked and they were exhausted all the time. Then someone brought in a note from her doctor saying she could only work 40 hours a week for medical reasons, and the company, as per its policy (and no doubt after consulting the attorneys) honored it. No more overtime for her.

Within a few weeks more than half of the workers had seen their doctors and brought in similar notes either prohibiting overtime or restricting it. The company had to shut down the line on Sundays. Morale improved immediately because people felt they had some control over their lives again. Even the people who chose to continue working lots of overtime felt better because it was THEIR choice. They knew they could end it at any time.

Pretty soon after this the company hired a weekend crew.

Would it have been better to organize and demand a contract with restrictions on mandatory overtime? Certainly. But, that was unlikely to happen in that place and that time and you use what you can when your employer is abusing you.