How many others are working a lot more than 40 hrs a week as "salary" employees?

[peacebird]

I typically work about 48 hours a week, though last week was 60 and i already have 30 in the first two days of this week.
Do you feel your work is appreciated, or do you feel you are donating extra hours to help their profit?

[Cleita]

1. That's the problem between salary and hourly.

Since I was an underpaid female, I usually insisted on hourly even though in theory it paid less. I still work hourly when I work. The only time salary is justified IMHO is when you are really making fabulous wages and benefits and those are worth eighty hour weeks on the job. Otherwise, salary allows employers to make you do the work of two and sometimes three other employees they would have to pay hourly.

[TeamsterDem]

2. I've seen salaries work as reasonable wages, but often it's a guise to avoid paying overtime. nt

[mrmpa]

3. I had a job where I was salaried.........

any week I worked over 40 hours, the extra hours were put in my comp time bank. My boss made sure that by the end of the year we used our comp time. This was a municiapal governmental job.

[TexasTowelie]

4. No, I did not feel that my work was appreciated.

I was pulling about 45 hours a week when the work flow was normal. During the spring I had reporting deadlines and would usually work about 60 hours a week for about two-three months straight since I was the lead analyst reporting workers compensation data.

What got me though was after having a busy first-half of the year, then we had to do systems testing and coordinate with counterparts in India. That meant 6:30 a.m. teleconferences, reacting to issues found while taking care of normal duties, then 6:30 p.m. teleconferences and if I was "lucky" they would ask us to stay a few extra hours to enter data so I would catch the last bus home at 10 p.m. Not much open at that time of night within walking distance so the evening meal was usually a burger from McDonalds. During the three months of testing (July-October) I was putting in 70-75 hours a week with a peak of 82 hours.

The Christmas party sucked and I got a rubber duck, the next performance evaluation came in February and nothing extra appeared then either. I received my ten-year certificate from the company the following September and then was laid off two weeks later.

So much for being appreciated. There wasn't much difference between a "salaried" employee and being a "slave" employee in my opinion.

[TheMastersNemesis]

5. Stealing Time Commonplace

Stealing a persons time without paying for it has been on the rise since Ronald Reagan. All the talk about increasing productivity is about making people work more while paying less or not pay at all for excess hours. It is now epidemic and endemic in the post recession era. Employers get around the limited hours by misclassifying employees as supervisor or managers. Or they are bold enough to just overwork someone without pay. Stolen wages and uncompensated time are run in the multiple billions of dollars and are increasing rapidly.

Threats and intimidation both direct and indirect forces employees to stay extra hours. Fear of losing a job in in a very tight to non existent job market is a winner for employers. And employees cannot resist effectively on an individual bases. Employers now have all the power in a work at will environment where a person can be terminated and NO reason has to be given. So the swinging axe of Edgar Alan Poe domain constantly swings over head. Thanks to the GOP employees have no rights at work now.

Employers also game the hours by contracting employees. These contracts are set pay contracts where hours are nebulous. Contracts are short term and renewal is rarely guaranteed. Contractees either work for a subcontractor who gets about 20% to 40% of the salary or they work as individual contracts.

With the din about over regulation and residual employees from the Bush era still in place in major federal agencies labor law enforcement spotty at best. Also underfunding leaves virtually no staff to enforce rules. The policeman has been pretty much sacked.

Work is not appreciated because workers now are only expendable cogs in machine. And American workers are compared to third world workers who can work up to 90 hours per week. Globalization and open ended free trade agreements puts American workers at a complete disadvantage. You cannot compete against 24 cents and hour and 90 hours a week.

I worked at DOL for 24 years and when Reagan said we would have a service economy is was code for reducing wages and higher work hours with fewer benefits. The American people largely voted for this situation by being anti union, anti government and anti regulation. By putting in hard right conservatives and Republicans over time the voters gave permission to business to undercut their ability to make a living.

As a nation the American worker will only see the labor situation deteriorate until they elect pro labor and pro union candidates. And they will have to elect politicians who are progressive and support living wages, job security, longevity, benefits and labor law enforcement.

As I have posted several times workers must demand a Second Economic Bill Of Rights as first brought up by Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 and defined specifically by FDR in 1944. It that policy is too socialistic so be it.

[arthritisR_US]

6. +1000!

[TeamsterDem]

7. This is such a good post that I feel deficient simply telling you it was great. Great job! nt

[Zalatix]

8. Well said! n/t

[Johonny]

13. +1

[3waygeek]

9. I work at least 50 hours per week...

that's pretty much the norm for the software industry, where I've been for the last 25 years.

[barbtries]

10. 9 to 10 hours a day

when i took a 2 week vacation last summer, upon my return i put in 120 hours in 12 straight days: essentially "paying back" my vacation time on my own dime.
add to that some office shake ups that have left me feeling unappreciated and destined to stay in the same position forever and i don't feel the same about my job that i did just a year ago.

[leftyohiolib]

11. try unionizing even management can be in them

please spare me the i-cant-because reasons

[TeamsterDem]

17. supervisors and managers are excluded from the NLRA

by statute and case law. Anyone who directs the work of another - especially someone who can hire and fire - may not join a union in the US.

[leftyohiolib]

19. thanks- i know there are management unions in other countries thought it would apply here- silly me

[irisblue]

12. i have been in that position as an hourly employee.

in a doctors office that was mamaged by a hospital chain. the last patient was booked at my "quitting time" 5 pm. some times i left @ 5, most often at 5:30. i kept a rumming total. after a built up a total of 24-ish hours i spoke to the mamages and asked for comp time off instead of ovettime pay. (i didn't think to ask for 1.5 hours of comp time) after some hemming and hawing i did get it. i'm sure it went up line to layers of management before it came back down to me as a yes you can take it off. and at that time, i didn't know i was paid more then the mamager beacuse i had professional degrees and she didn't, she was kinda pissed about that. since the feds labor dept classifies my job as an hourly position, i'm an hourly, if i stay over it's because the management needs to hire more staff.

[X_Digger]

14. 55'ish most weeks.

I'm donating my extra hours so that my name doesn't appear on the next round of layoffs.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

15. I'm it salaried- but-

I'm tipped- however if the amount of tips you receive does not make minimum wage they must adjust for the difference. My employers over reported my tips so they didn't have to. Which means me working overtime I didn't even make minimum wage and have to pay taxes as though I did. Unfortunately there is no way at all to prove this claim

[taught_me_patience]

16. I'm salaried and almost work no overtime

If asked, I'll usually just say, "I'll finish it tomorrow". If I do happen to work over, then I'll just leave early the next week to make up for it.

[Digit]

18. I was hired at a certain hourly wage and there was no talk about being salaried

Once I began the job, the owner of the business told me I was salaried and would sit in a chair facing the door,
mind you no desk in front of him, waiting for me to come back from lunch. He just sat and would give me the
stink eye. Already I was coming in early and staying late but he expected me to give up my lunch break, too.

The job description also wildly changed and prevented me from making commissions. I quit after only a couple of months.

Good riddance!

I am not falling for that again.