US Senator Proposes Bill To Eliminate Overtime For IT Workers

[rozzyroz]

I need to get out of this country ASAP

you have to look at cost of living as well.. that $17 is prolly less then your 6.5.... even if you are in different parts of the US, lets say callifornia or newyork city, cost of living will be 2 or 3 times that of other areas of the us. salaries reflect the cost of living.

[FischOderAal]

Being in the UK I can say over here if you work on fixing networks and stuff like that oyu'll get paid perhaps around £20k a year (thats about $31,000). If you are fortunate enough to find a job in the first place. The biggest problem in the UK is all the foreign folks, theres too many of them and not enough jobs for the UK nationals as well. The end result is that the qualified british worker is passed up every time in favour of the cheaper foreign worker.

Blaming it on "the foreigners" is too easy. Imho the UK simply does not have enough jobs in the industry. Most jobs are in the service sector or at the banks.

When I was studying in the UK I read something that fits quite well: being british means working in a French company, driving home in a Korean car, to sit in front of a Japanese TV drinking beer from Belgium.

[the finisher]

Being in the UK I can say over here if you work on fixing networks and stuff like that oyu'll get paid perhaps around £20k a year (thats about $31,000). If you are fortunate enough to find a job in the first place. The biggest problem in the UK is all the foreign folks, theres too many of them and not enough jobs for the UK nationals as well. The end result is that the qualified british worker is passed up every time in favour of the cheaper foreign worker.

The same thing happened to me here in the US some years ago. Wages in my field (not IT) were driven down by cheap foreign, and illegal labor. I just had to deal, it drove me to up my game, and specialize at the top of my field. Things are still tough, but at least I have a path up. So in the long run its been good for me personally, I hope.

[Dainas]

you have to look at cost of living as well.. that $17 is prolly less then your 6.5.... even if you are in different parts of the US, lets say callifornia or newyork city, cost of living will be 2 or 3 times that of other areas of the us. salaries reflect the cost of living.

Actually no they don't, its actually a major deal here now that people entering the market and those in it do not start at anywhere near the starting wage, nor can they expect the raise curve enjoyed by a generation earlier.

And then there is the burger flippers. In most of the Bay Area (where all the IT jobs are and housing runs 3x the national average) minimum wage is the state minimum of $8 an hour with zero rent control and nonexistent access to housing aid. One can hardly survive in a Californian backwater on that, it is absolutely laughable where even at the end of a long our commute it cost $750 to rent a room. I don't know how people can afford to work any of the service industry here, all I typically see are teens and retirees. People tend to flee here the second they turn 20, and even in the upscale neighborhood I grew up in young people considered it laughably overpriced here. Only foolish boomers who had taken masses of equity out or were a million deep in their mortgage, but for the sake of their ill wrought retirement hopes saw it as normal or even 'good'.

The thing is in the United States the numbers often don't add up because many people will run up credit to pay for living cost, declare bankruptcy, rinse and repeat in a five year cycle to hide that they were in the red.

[vab206]

does anyone else see the master switch for the internet going down on friday @ 5pm? then everyone being like "well no ot to fix it see ya monday". this will never pass simply because corporations cannot afford to let their systems be down overnight in the digital age we are in. no OT means no after hours calls, no nothing.

[Andrew LB]

Wow... and the person behind the bill is a Democrat??? How could it be?!?! /sarcasm

IT workers in general are non-Union, so this fits perfectly into the President's re-election platform of class-warfare. Reminds me of the campaign to use the court system to shut down the new Boeing facility in South Carolina... because they were non-Union as well. Or the raid on Gibson Guitar Company, the Stimulus bill which was nothing more than a slush fund for Unions and head of AFLCIO, Andy Stern... who just happened to visit the white house over 400 days in Obama's first two years. Obama doesn't give a crap about the middle class unless the people in question are Union. It's becoming more clear every single day that the President and his union buddies have a goal through union contracts, lavish benefits, and insane (greek-like) pension plans, to put this country into a financial hole so deep that this country just might get that 'revolution' the left has wanted since the 1960's. They realized then that they couldn't beat 'the man', so they made a tactical shift to 'be the man'. Why else do you think they call themselves 'progressives'? It's been going on since Woodrow Wilson about 100 years ago. Push, nudge, etc... little steps at a time.

[sjohnson]

They've screwed over computer programmers when it comes to overtime now they want to do the same to IT workers who makes more than $27.63


source:http://www.standalone-sysadmin.com/b...ls-update-act/

This is a news item, but legally defining exempt IT employees is hardly "new." It's law and has been so for some time now. Reference http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/screen75.asp for existing exempt classifications, including various IT professions - the same professions in the listed in the text of the bill.

The proposed bill is a clarification measure, NOT a new measure. The BILL (a measure submitted to Congress) has not yet been made an ACT (passed by both houses of Congress and signed by the President).

If you've been getting O/T pay as an hourly IT professional before, if the BILL becomes an ACT you will likely continue to get O/T pay. Just as before, your employer is not *required* to pay it.

[Kunaak]

I would like to introduce my own bill.

1. no member of the goverment will make over 50 a year, enough to live on, not enough to buy a mansion.

2. any cop that pepper sprays helpless people who have a constitutional right to assembly and protest, will be shot out of a canon, towards the sun.

3. any major corperation that borrows tax payer money, and doesnt pay it back within 3 years, will have every CEO shot out the the canon to the sun, but that canon will first be filled with feces.

[Sailindawg]

Wait, how and why does the federal government even think it has control over whether PRIVATE COMPANIES pay their employees overtime or not?

Or am I just reading it wrong.

That's the current socialists trying to level the playing field. Leave it to the private companies & the market place to decide these salary rates. There are no labor law violations occurring, it's just big government meddling where it should not.

[naokaji]

That's the current socialists trying to level the playing field.

Except that picking one category of people and limiting their income achieves the opposite of leveling the playing, also effectively it means people in IT will be forced to work partially for free if they don't get paid for overtime (having to do overtime is the norm these days), so it is a partial reintroduction of slavery. Bringing back slavery and spreading the playing field even further doesn't sound exactly socialist to me.