Is wage theft acceptable nowadays?

[arikara]

I work for a non-union company. When I first started, they would pay overtime at time and a half. Then they decided that you could only bank time and take an hour off for an hour worked. Today I put in to take a day of my banked time off and got informed that we don't do that anymore. It turns out that some of the newer people have been heroically racking up mega-hours without banking any time and now its the expected/accepted thing.

I'm REALLY steamed. And I don't think that there's a damned thing I can do about it. Is this normal practice now?

[Occulus]

1. Find someone else who's steamed about it

and get them to start a union with you. As I understand it, it only takes two to form one. That may only be here in MI, however.

Advice: check your state's labor laws as well as the Federal labor laws.

[dolgoruky]

4. Wage Theft is THE Biggest Corporate Crime

Wage theft is theft: plain and simple. There are no excuses. You don't get in a taxi, agree the destination and the price, and then ask the driver to go further for nothing when you get there. It makes me incandescent with rage when I find people working overtime for nothing. They are traitors to their class. Collaborating with the enemy. A menace to us all. Let's stop them...

[Don_G]

2. Check Your Labor Laws

It's called theft of services.

[A HERETIC I AM]

3. Check with an attorney that specializes in Labor Law in your area...

It isnt legal on it's face, but if you are an "At Will" employee (most non-union Americans are) they can fire you for having a bad hair day. In other words, it is possible that if you make a stink, they could just get rid of you instead of paying you. The answer? Refuse overtime unless you have it in WRITING that they will PAY you time and a half. Remember, they have the government on their side on this one. Also, look in the yellow pages in the government section for a "Labor relations board" or something to that effect. Check with them. If your company is a habitual abuser and has been reported by others in the past, a class action suit might be in order.

[sasquatch]

5. I take it you live in the south?

If not hire a lawyer and sue thier dicks off. If so then you're pretty much fucked because they think of workers the same way I think of cattle or sheep. They more or less miss slavery still and that's why they chip away at workers rights and bust up unions any chance they get. After that I'd confront the boss and give him a ultimatum "pay me what I'm owed or I'll call the police." If the police tell you that you can piss up a rope because the DA is in cahoots with local buisiness and won't prosecute till there's a National Hockey League team in hell. In that case I'd beat the out of your head supervisor and make him pay or bleed;) All kidding aside I hope you get what you're owed. If you don't believe that about the south and think I'm just a yankee bigot. Go ask Mike Malloy, ask Molly Ivins, ask Jim Hightower, hell ask Joe Vechio they'll verify what I say.

[regnaD kciN]

6. Yep...

...at my former company, it was considered "cheating the company" to work less than 60 hours. Unpaid overtime, of course.

And, if you showed any dissatisfaction with the situation, or had childcare problems that meant that you couldn't work exactly the extra hours they insisted on (meaning that you were still putting in 60 hours, but some of it on weekend mornings instead of weekday evenings), you were tagged with the "bad attitude" label, and let go as soon as practicable.

The big, unspoken fact is that the Republican/corporate axis doesn't want a return to the "good old days" of the 1950s (as their propaganda always refers to), but to the neo-feudal state of a hundred years ago, when there were no basic labor laws to protect workers, and you "owed your soul to the company store." They're well on their way to getting that, worldwide.

:-(

[thebaghwan]

7. I am not an attorney but I am a paralegal, this is what I suggest.

First I would take a good look at this page which is on the Department of Labor site.

Then I would definitely contact an attorney in your area who specializes in employment law. The local yellow pages usually lists attorneys by specialty also.

If you need anymore help tell me how to contact you offline.

[thebaghwan]

8. Forgot the link

Here it is: http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/wages/overtimepay.htm

[arikara]

9. I should mention that I'm in Canada

We're no better off up here than you are down there. This company cans people bi-annually, then a week later has a meeting to brag about their profits. Their profits are always exactly what the wages of the people they fired would have been.

Last pass they nailed my department, axing some very good people for no reason. Now they want to steal my time.

And this company just won honours as one of the top 100 companies to work for in Canada.

It sure doesn't say much for the rest.


On edit: I just want to say thanks for all your suggestions and I will definitely check into it further with a lawyer.

[A HERETIC I AM]

10. that company isnt Northern Telecom, by any chance? n/t

[arikara]

11. No, is that their style too?

They seem to be pretty much the same now, don't they.

[A HERETIC I AM]

13. NORTEL had a HUGE presence in Research Triangle Park

In the Raliegh-Durham, N.C. area, (they probably still do) I heard they mad massive layoffs a few years back and i am not sure if they were union or not. Just curious. NORTEL is a huge Canadian firm with a large American presence and the earlier post just seemed to fit what little i know about them. They manufacture phone switching equipment, among other telecommunications hardware. They are, BTW, perfectly suited to redo the phone equipment targeted by the Pentagon during the "War" stage of the war in Iraq.

Edited because i am a moron and can't spell and proofread properly!

[Kat45]

14. You don't work for Thomson, do you?

[arikara]

16. Do you mean Thomson the newspaper publishers?

No, its a lot smaller company that I work for. So I probably shouldn't say the name on a public forum.

[Interrobang]

17. Oh, yes, you ARE better off.

Pardon me, but yes, you are. First of all, as a Canadian, you have a legal right to organize. Secondly, you have the legal right to collect wages for services rendered, and not to be terminated for spurious reasons. If you believe in a deity, thank it that you don't live in a US "right to work" state, because then you'd have less than no rights. (If you don't, just consider yourself fortunate.)

Here's a link to what Human Resources Development Canada says about wages and labour standards:

http://labour.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/pdf/pdf_e/hours(e).pdf
(copy and paste this because DU doesn't like links with brackets)

http://labour.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/psait_spila/lmnec_eslc/index.cfm/doc/english
HRDC's main labour standards page

If I were you, I'd call your local HRDC office

http://labour.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/contact/offices/index.cfm/doc/english
(find it here)

and ask them about it. See also

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/l-4/c.r.c.-c.1015/102619.html
Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Regulations (main page is http://info.load-otea.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/federal_legislation/home.htm)

You probably also want to contact a lawyer or legal aid clinic with a specialist in labour laws to see how you can get redress, because they *cannot* by law do that to you.

Here's another page with a LOT of links.

http://labourrelations.org/Links/Labour_Links.html

Enjoy. Don't let the Yanks get you down; you're in a somewhat better place than you think.

[thebaghwan]

12. More info for you

I took a quick look around for Canadian Labor Law. You might want to go to this link http://labour.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/psait_spila/lmnec_eslc/index.cfm?fuseaction=english

and click on overtime and standard hours it will download a PDF file and start on page 2. As you will quickly see there seems to be a lot of possible local or provincial law and a lot of exemptions. Again, I would find out what the Canadian equivalent of the U S Department of Labor is and contact them. I also would contact a local attorney who specializes in labor or employment law.

Please do not beat the shit out of your boss. I don't know how to bail people out of Canadian lockups.

Hope this helps!

The pissed off paralegal. Knowing a little law is a dangerous thing!

[arikara]

15. Thanks all of you...

I was so angry that I barely slept so was too exhausted to turn on my computer at home last night. The good news is that my boss somewhat backtracked probably because she knew that I wouldn't do any more OT and they need me to do it right now. Or maybe she was scared I'd beat her up, I don't know. Anyhow, I have some breathing room to find out my rights if any and I can check the link.