Boss making me work extra hours for no pay

Hopkinton wrote:

That being the case - I am surprised that "hours per week" isn't quantified within the contract. Or is it?

If hours per week was quantified, then in a legal test, the employee or contractor would immediately become an hourly worker.

This is why comp time isn't allowed (accounting-wise) anymore. It can potentially trigger salaried professional workers into hourly employees.

CH2M Hill owed engineers back pay (amounting to millions of dollars) a while ago because of comp time, and paying hourly overtime (inconsistently) to salaried professionals. They were found to be accounting for exempts as if they were non-exempt - and owed back pay as a result as if all of their engineers were hourly employees.

Questions to the OP - are you specifically being asked to stay until 9? or are you given tasks that will take you that long to complete? If you have nothing to do, but are staying late, seems to me you could have a conversation about that with your boss. If you're overloaded - well, welcome to 2011! Work/Life balance ended in 2007...

look into the labor laws in your state. Tracl all the hours she makes you work for no pay and if they are after 40 hr work week. Most states must provide 2 paid 10 min breaks if you work over 6 hours a day and a 30 min lunch break--although they do not have to pay for that....when you should leave the company seek out a labor lawyer for compensation...

Stand up for yourself wrote:

If she fires you then you will collect unemployment.

Not necessarily. That will depend on which state OP is in and their eligibility requirements for unemployment compensation.

Rbyrne wrote:

look into the labor laws in your state. Tracl all the hours she makes you work for no pay and if they are after 40 hr work week. Most states must provide 2 paid 10 min breaks if you work over 6 hours a day and a 30 min lunch break--although they do not have to pay for that....when you should leave the company seek out a labor lawyer for compensation...

Highly unlikely any of those laws apply. If he's salaried, he is almost certainly exempt.

Besides, you would want an employment lawyer, not a labor lawyer. Labor laws = union and collective bargaining laws (basically).

Relish the discipline. It is necessary to demonstrate that you have some commitment to the organization, within certain limits true. You haven't reached those limits yet. I've worked in Asia but even they don't exploit their employees like the US companies/institutions.

YOU SHOULD SUE HIM! HE IS THE BOSS, YOU ARE THE EMPLOYEE AND HE IS REQUIRED TO BEND OVER BACKWARDS TO ACCOMMODATE YOUR DEMANDS OR ELSE!

HAVE YOU JOINED A UNION YET? YOU SHOULD!!! THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN IF YOU WERE IN A UNION!!!!! UNIONS CAN FORCE EMPLOYERS TO BEND OVER AND TAKE IT UP THE ASS, AND THEN I EXPECT THEM TO TURN AROUND AND CREATE JOBS! HA HA HA!

Rbyrne wrote:

look into the labor laws in your state. Tracl all the hours she makes you work for no pay and if they are after 40 hr work week. Most states must provide 2 paid 10 min breaks if you work over 6 hours a day and a 30 min lunch break--although they do not have to pay for that....when you should leave the company seek out a labor lawyer for compensation...

If you follow this advice, you'll never get a job again, and deservedly so.

Are you salaried or hourly?

I assume it is a small business. If not, contact HR.

If it is a small business, contact state labor department.

Or walk away

random a hole wrote:

Bloody Airs wrote:

I am liberal and vote democrat and support equal rights and pay for women, but I personally will never ever work under a woman.

You're doing it wrong. If you are under them they do most of the work.

Exactly!!!!!!!!

Internet Sargent Slaughter wrote:

Nobody with a good salaried job only works 40 hours a week. Grow a pair and get to work or accept the fact that you're going to be doomed to jobs with low annual wages.

+1. find a real job that gets off at 5:00 and let me know. otherwise i lol at you. 9:00 is early

I have to say I agree with the prevalent sentiment that you have a tough choice to make: stick it out or move on. It really doesn't sound like there is that nice middle ground there where you can have your cake and eat it too without causing your contract to go unrenewed or some other negative consequence.

I really have never met someone who works 9-5. That idea sounds made up, unless you live in a well structured professional country in europe like sweden. With the market the way it is, I would say make the choice to start throwing down. Let your family know it will be rough for a while with how much you work, and become someone so good and essential that they can't function without you. Outwork your boss and give her a taste of her own medicine. This will take minimum 6 mo.s. Then you have some leverage, and can start cutting back. The alternatives are looking for other jobs without telling them or a career change, both of which can work out great (what I recently did, couldn't be happier now!).

Good luck sir, i don't envy your position and choice. It sucks your boss is doing that to you.

Hi,

Don't know if you've had your question answered already... but I just wanted to say that my husband went through a similar situation a couple years back..

My husband is salaried.. (No over time no matter what). Well one day the CEO of my husbands company asked him to perform something that was out of his job description.. The item the CEO wanted done was an entire video conferencing system done for a hundred thousand dollars less than the Pros can do it for..

Anyway, so my husband (a programmer..not a video technician), had to have holes drilled into the ceiling, run wire, install drop down projector screens, a projector and make custom wood boxes for these specialty cameras... (Sound like a programmer anymore?) My husband had done these types of things to his cars to install stereos and had personal knowledge of video systems.. Nonetheless, he had never installed anything like this in his life and had to learn as he went! Kinda scary having the CEO putting that much weight on your shoulders...

Whelp in turn the CEO did not mention any compensation for the extra curricular activity.. he was too busy imagining all the money the company was going to save on airplane and hotel fees for the guys they had to fly out to have meetings.. The video system would be saving them $250,000 a year!

When 6 months of video system work went by, we realized that my husband had done over 100 hours of overtime into that specific project for no pay or promise thereof..and it was keeping him from doing his normal position..

I smelled a big, greedy fish... So I found the CA Fair labor commission and/or industrial commision (I think that's what they're called)

They stated that those that are salaried are considered 'professionals' in their field. Typically this category is for office personnel: computer programmers, office managers, dentists, drs, etc.. (no one doing any manual/phyiscal labor)...

Anyway, what it came down to was that my husband was no longer performing his professional salaried position during the hours he worked on the video conferencing system.. he was doing physical labor way out of his job description..

He brought this information to HR..(who had already told him that he would not be paid overtime due to the fact he was salaried). HR changed their tune when they heard the Industrial Commission mentioned.. They then stated that they will have to pay my husband the overtime of over 100 hours now due to the 'out of professional classification' fact alone..

My husband is now a - hourly paid - professional..

I hope your situation gets better soon with your overworking boss...

BUMP, what happened here.

stuck with match.com wrote:

BUMP, what happened here.

After reading and thinking about all the posts I can only conclude if you think you can find a better job, mention to your boss you won't be working more hours and good luck getting another job.

Is it every day or once or twice a week? Do you like the salary, then work the freaking hours and see your kids on your days off. Do you realize how tough it is for many of us right now? Half the country is freaking out on a daily basis that there job is going to end and they would gladly work 10-12 hour days.

I recently started working Saturdays with no pay period, not to mention no overtime. It probably costs me just under 10 bucks just to drive in and back. Forget about a Christmas bonus the year also.

OP

So far, you have received BS for advice.

Do you really want to solve this problem?

Wear pants to work that are a little tight.

Put rolled up socks in you crotch. Make a nice bulge.

Act like nothing is different. Talk nice to her. Let her know you like working for her.

Soon, she will be all over you. Then, lead her on, and tell her you are afraid your wife will find out, and that you will have to go work somewhere else.

This will create a very unhappy boss. She will offer many things to make you stay. Like, shorter hours. Better pay.

This has been done for hundreds of year.

It's just been done by women, to men.

It works.