Author Topic: Good reason to have FU money...  (Read 12847 times)

Gone Fishing

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Good reason to have FU money...
« on: October 08, 2015, 02:56:08 PM »

jinga nation

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #1 on: October 08, 2015, 03:08:32 PM »
In the age of social media (personal and corporate), all mass emails will eventually be exposed to the public.

Asking employees to volunteer to work at their workplace is just plain wrong. That isn't volunteering but working for free lunch. Real volunteering would be spending time on a real volunteer cause to benefit a non-profit / charity org.

irishbear99

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #2 on: October 08, 2015, 03:24:41 PM »
Asking employees to volunteer to work at their workplace is just plain wrong.

Not to mention, if I were a wage worker with them I'd be pissed at the company for having others take shifts for free that I could be working for a wage.

AZDude

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #3 on: October 08, 2015, 03:39:54 PM »
Yeah... I cannot see this going over well for anyone...

sleepyguy

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #4 on: October 09, 2015, 08:53:00 AM »
What a jackass move.  We have the same deal here with some HUGE multi million dollar companies that have postings for for UNPAID internships.  Grads are so desperate that some do this to "beef" up their resume but honestly... it's setting a terrible example and they will continue to pave the way for more corporate abuse of it's employees.

You work, you get paid.

acroy

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #5 on: October 09, 2015, 09:31:11 AM »
 ”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.

nobodyspecial

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #6 on: October 09, 2015, 09:59:58 AM »
We have the same deal here with some HUGE multi million dollar companies that have postings for for UNPAID internships. 

I'm surprised they are still free.  You pay $50K/pa to go to college to get a degree that is worthless without an internship from $MEGAcorp, shouldn't $MEGACorp be charging at least a proportion of that?

Marus

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #7 on: October 09, 2015, 10:19:28 AM »
We have the same deal here with some HUGE multi million dollar companies that have postings for for UNPAID internships. 

I'm surprised they are still free.  You pay $50K/pa to go to college to get a degree that is worthless without an internship from $MEGAcorp, shouldn't $MEGACorp be charging at least a proportion of that?

You could make the case that many of these unpaid internships are running afoul of labor laws.  According to the current regulatory interpretation of the FLSA, if the company is benefitting from the work you provide as an intern they're legally obligated to pay you.  It's not enforced very well though, since many of the interns don't see themselves as being exploited, even if they are providing free labor.  And no company is voluntarily going to tell the Department of Labor that unpaid interns are an important part of their business model.

AllieVaulter

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #8 on: October 09, 2015, 12:06:53 PM »
”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.

I don't know labor laws.  But Urban Outfitters specifically cited that they have to provide work schedules one week in advance.  They're looking for free labor three weekends in a row.  Maybe they can't schedule the paid workers the first weekend, but what's stopping them from scheduling them the other two weekends? 

NoraLenderbee

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #9 on: October 09, 2015, 01:17:14 PM »
”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.


I suspect the laws UO is worried about are the ones that would require them to pay their hourly employees overtime.

AllieVaulter

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #10 on: October 09, 2015, 01:23:06 PM »
”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.


I suspect the laws UO is worried about are the ones that would require them to pay their hourly employees overtime.

Or just "pay their employees".

AZDude

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #11 on: October 09, 2015, 02:01:59 PM »
”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.

It was a dick move. Hourly employees could have participated, if the company paid them for their work. Honestly, though, blame the employees. Anyone volunteering should be ashamed of themselves for supporting executive greed.

nobodyspecial

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #12 on: October 09, 2015, 04:14:05 PM »
We have the same deal here with some HUGE multi million dollar companies that have postings for for UNPAID internships. 
I'm surprised they are still free.  You pay $50K/pa to go to college to get a degree that is worthless without an internship from $MEGAcorp, shouldn't $MEGACorp be charging at least a proportion of that?

You could make the case that many of these unpaid internships are running afoul of labor laws.  According to the current regulatory interpretation of the FLSA, if the company is benefitting from the work you provide as an intern they're legally obligated to pay you.
All the more reason to claim that it is "workplace education" and charge the interns for course credits


BPA

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #13 on: October 09, 2015, 04:28:19 PM »
”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.

Are you suggesting that this didn't actually happen?  Because it doesn't take much deep media analysis to realize that it is a dick move...unless you believe in exploiting low wage workers whenever you get the chance.  Then I guess it being a dick move might not be so obvious to you.

libertarian4321

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #14 on: October 09, 2015, 05:55:05 PM »
In the age of social media (personal and corporate), all mass emails will eventually be exposed to the public.

Asking employees to volunteer to work at their workplace is just plain wrong. That isn't volunteering but working for free lunch. Real volunteering would be spending time on a real volunteer cause to benefit a non-profit / charity org.

It's "big news" when this happens to hourly employees.

However, it happens every day, at just about every company in the USA to "professional" workers.

If a company wants people to work overtime, they should PAY THEM to do so, doesn't matter whether that person is an engineer or someone stocking shelves at The Gap.

zephyr911

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #15 on: October 09, 2015, 07:56:30 PM »

You could make the case that many of these unpaid internships are running afoul of labor laws.  According to the current regulatory interpretation of the FLSA, if the company is benefitting from the work you provide as an intern they're legally obligated to pay you.  It's not enforced very well though, since many of the interns don't see themselves as being exploited, even if they are providing free labor.  And no company is voluntarily going to tell the Department of Labor that unpaid interns are an important part of their business model.
Are there any internships where the company doesn't benefit at all?
Why would they continue to exist?

Apples

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #16 on: October 13, 2015, 04:48:45 AM »
We have the same deal here with some HUGE multi million dollar companies that have postings for for UNPAID internships. 
I'm surprised they are still free.  You pay $50K/pa to go to college to get a degree that is worthless without an internship from $MEGAcorp, shouldn't $MEGACorp be charging at least a proportion of that?

You could make the case that many of these unpaid internships are running afoul of labor laws.  According to the current regulatory interpretation of the FLSA, if the company is benefitting from the work you provide as an intern they're legally obligated to pay you.
All the more reason to claim that it is "workplace education" and charge the interns for course credits

I went to a large state school.  Depending on your major, an internship was either optional and you could choose to get credits for it by doing some additional paperwork ("what i learned on my internship....") BUT in several an internship was required, and for credits.  It involved professor site visits and everything.  So the students had to pay several hundred dollars for the required credits, in order to have the privilege of getting a bit of very very low paid (it's a low paid industry to begin with) or unpaid work for a summer.  I was in the club for this major, and the students were trying to change the "required" part, so they didn't have to pay for it, which for many meant take out loans for a summer job.  Because that's dumb.  We had VP's of two large companies in the room (they were going to give presentations) that offer very low paid internships bordering on minimum wage who never before understood why their interns complained that they weren't making much money.  They then considered raises when they found out the students were essentially paying for the privilege of working for them. Ugh.

lakemom

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #17 on: October 13, 2015, 06:02:52 AM »
In the age of social media (personal and corporate), all mass emails will eventually be exposed to the public.

Asking employees to volunteer to work at their workplace is just plain wrong. That isn't volunteering but working for free lunch. Real volunteering would be spending time on a real volunteer cause to benefit a non-profit / charity org.

It's "big news" when this happens to hourly employees.

However, it happens every day, at just about every company in the USA to "professional" workers.

If a company wants people to work overtime, they should PAY THEM to do so, doesn't matter whether that person is an engineer or someone stocking shelves at The Gap.

+10 which is why dh has not gone back into the corporate world!

nobodyspecial

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #18 on: October 13, 2015, 09:26:55 AM »
BUT in several an internship was required, and for credits. 

Back in the early middle ages when I was a student in the UK, some courses required a sandwich term/year in industry, typically engineering.
But you were paid a regular wage for the time spent in industry - which is why only engineering students had cars.

Internships were a way of keeping the peasants out of the professions. Law required you to do a one year unpaid internship with a law firm, so although anyone could afford to go to university (no fees if you got high enough grades - yeah socialism) only people that could afford to live in London on no pay for a year would become lawyers.

runningthroughFIRE

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #19 on: October 13, 2015, 09:45:11 AM »

You could make the case that many of these unpaid internships are running afoul of labor laws.  According to the current regulatory interpretation of the FLSA, if the company is benefitting from the work you provide as an intern they're legally obligated to pay you.  It's not enforced very well though, since many of the interns don't see themselves as being exploited, even if they are providing free labor.  And no company is voluntarily going to tell the Department of Labor that unpaid interns are an important part of their business model.
Are there any internships where the company doesn't benefit at all?
Why would they continue to exist?
At large companies, they usually shouldn't.  The current interpretation allows for unpaid interns so long as the internship is for the benefit of the intern.  So if you're doing something that doesn't benefit the company monitarily and the company is doing this just to help you out or teach you something, then they don't have to pay you.  The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is shadowing someone.  If you were doing something with the direct supervision of an employee who would otherwise be doing that task, then the company doesn't really benefit, since they would have to pay the materials costs and the time of the employee anyways, and the intern would be learning a skill.

LiveLean

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #20 on: October 13, 2015, 11:44:02 AM »
I did a media-related internship for a Fortune 500 company in the summer of 1990 that paid $8.50/hour, which translates to $13/hour at least today. I lived at home, the experience was invaluable, and I gladly put in more than the 37.5 hours I was paid for. Would I have done it for free? Yes -- I ended up going to work for Fortune 500 company right out of school in 1991 - not a good job market. But I was thrilled to have the $3,000 or so gross I made that summer, which helped pay for my senior year. Fortune 500 company discontinued paid internships by the mid-1990s.

As a small business owner, I've provided one-semester internships. Not paid, but it's through the local university. They call it a "practicum" and the student spends no more than 8 hours/week on work for my company for credit -- I believe 1.0 credits, which is nothing, but the practicum is required to graduate. It's understood that there's no cash involved, but for the ones who have really kicked butt I've given them a modest check at the end. Two of the three former interns are doing well in their careers -- I lost touch with the other -- and both said the experience was valuable.

Rollin

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #21 on: October 14, 2015, 11:05:18 AM »
”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.

The labor laws (Fair Labor Standards Act) say if they (certain classified employees that is) work more than 40 hours in a week they must be compensated - in other words they can't ask them to work for free like the exempts.  So, continue with the bashing...

nobodyspecial

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #22 on: October 14, 2015, 05:38:58 PM »
”Many hourly employees also offered to pitch in—an offer which we appreciated, but declined in order to ensure full compliance with all applicable labor laws and regulations,”
The labor laws are very complex. Easy for us in the peanut gallery to see a headline and think 'dick move'.

The labor laws (Fair Labor Standards Act) say if they (certain classified employees that is) work more than 40 hours in a week they must be compensated - in other words they can't ask them to work for free like the exempts.  So, continue with the bashing...
In the same way that the civil war complicated labor laws in the cotton picking industry !

Bearded Man

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #23 on: October 27, 2015, 11:39:18 AM »
I really love being salaried and expected to work 60+ hours per week for the same pay, but if I have nothing to do and work less than 40 in a week I have to use PTO.

I never really do anymore than 40 hrs, but the thought that this is legal boggles my mind. I will say that is the ONE advantage to IT contracting: you can only accept contracts where you get paid by the hour. At my last gig I got paid straight time for anytime over 40 hrs per week. My pay rate was $60 per hour (125K a year for normal hours). Most professional jobs that are FTE are going to be salaried. Luckily I don't get a crap and only work 40 hrs.

Trudie

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #24 on: October 29, 2015, 12:14:31 PM »
At first blush -- based on my understanding of labor law -- this decision can also expose UO to labor law violations.  Cases involving misclassification of workers are hot in the US DOL right now, and have been the subject of my continuing education.  Often, when companies are cutting positions and hourly labor they might take a person who is in a salaried exempt management position and require them to work long hours doing rote tasks in addition to their usual supervisory and higher level decision making tasks.  For example, the financial manager who routinely analyzes financial results (requires judgement, specialized education) spends hours vouchering accounts payable invoices and working long hours (while not getting paid overtime).  The courts have routinely held that this is an abuse of worker classification laws and awarded back overtime pay.

As with all things, I'm sure it's a matter of degree.  All of us have "one off" things that happen -- an employee goes out sick and others have to step up.  The law was not meant to prohibit that... just the routine, willful, disregard for the law over long periods of time.  In this case, I don't know how the DOL would look at it... even it's just one limited request the fact that it applies to so many employees and impacts a broader class might have some bearing.

I wouldn't "volunteer" to give up my weekend...

dragoncar

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #25 on: October 29, 2015, 01:26:56 PM »

You could make the case that many of these unpaid internships are running afoul of labor laws.  According to the current regulatory interpretation of the FLSA, if the company is benefitting from the work you provide as an intern they're legally obligated to pay you.  It's not enforced very well though, since many of the interns don't see themselves as being exploited, even if they are providing free labor.  And no company is voluntarily going to tell the Department of Labor that unpaid interns are an important part of their business model.
Are there any internships where the company doesn't benefit at all?
Why would they continue to exist?
At large companies, they usually shouldn't.  The current interpretation allows for unpaid interns so long as the internship is for the benefit of the intern.  So if you're doing something that doesn't benefit the company monitarily and the company is doing this just to help you out or teach you something, then they don't have to pay you.  The only thing I can think of off the top of my head is shadowing someone.  If you were doing something with the direct supervision of an employee who would otherwise be doing that task, then the company doesn't really benefit, since they would have to pay the materials costs and the time of the employee anyways, and the intern would be learning a skill.

We're talking about net benefit.  Many unpaid internships will end up costing the business money in training and supervisory time.  Yes, you get a little work out of the intern but it's often make-work.  I had an unpaid internship once, and sure I helped out here and there, but I was mostly just taking up a desk and computer while learning a lot attending meetings.
« Last Edit: October 29, 2015, 01:28:45 PM by dragoncar »

tooqk4u22

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #26 on: October 29, 2015, 01:40:12 PM »
We're talking about net benefit.  Many unpaid internships will end up costing the business money in training and supervisory time.  Yes, you get a little work out of the intern but it's often make-work.  I had an unpaid internship once, and sure I helped out here and there, but I was mostly just taking up a desk and computer while learning a lot attending meetings.

Agreed. Interships are/were mutually beneficial as the employer gets to take a trial run with a prospective employee with out committing to the potential headaches/expense of letting someone go if it doesn't work. The intern gets exposure to hiring managers, some training, and best of all an opportunity to see of the job/career is even a fit before they take the long road of being stuck and miserable.

They intern may have to work their asses off for little to no wage but as dragon says there really isn't much benefit to short term natire of having an intern and in fact it might be negative give that experienced/productive resources need to spend time on/with the intern.....but having the option to find the right person is highly valuable.

Unfortunately, all the BS about the interns and labor laws only hurts interns (i.e. young people looking for a job). 

Even the UO request may have professional value....I mean if I was salaried and it would give me good exposure to other levels of managers or departments that would be there as well it could prove valuable, I know from experience with similar types of things.

mm1970

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #27 on: October 29, 2015, 02:20:31 PM »
I really love being salaried and expected to work 60+ hours per week for the same pay, but if I have nothing to do and work less than 40 in a week I have to use PTO.

I never really do anymore than 40 hrs, but the thought that this is legal boggles my mind. I will say that is the ONE advantage to IT contracting: you can only accept contracts where you get paid by the hour. At my last gig I got paid straight time for anytime over 40 hrs per week. My pay rate was $60 per hour (125K a year for normal hours). Most professional jobs that are FTE are going to be salaried. Luckily I don't get a crap and only work 40 hrs.
I know, right? My company made the "switch" over to PTO a few years ago, and gushed about how great and "flexible" it is.

I mean, I wasn't fooled, nor were my coworkers.  It's only "great" for the company. So now I get to use PTO for a dentist's appointment?  And sick kids, great.  Prior to PTO, we had "unlimited" sick time (within reason). 

So, work 88 hours one pay period and 78 hours the next and take 2 hours PTO?  No.

I first learned to track my hours and roll them over to the next week if necessary.
Then I learned to start vacations mid-pay-period.  So instead of taking 40 hours for a "full week", I generally have a few hours extra on either end, which can save PTO.
THEN I learned to just stop tracking hours at all.  I'm still early in this phase, hopefully it makes me feel better.  For someone who has tracked to the 0.25 hours since 2000, it's a hard transition to just write 10x8 and call it a day.

gimp

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Re: Good reason to have FU money...
« Reply #28 on: October 29, 2015, 02:26:23 PM »
At one of my internships (in CA), not only was I expected to track my hours, but CA does this weird thing where you get paid overtime for over 40 hours a week AND over 8 hours a day. So unlike my previous and next internships in other states, if I wanted to do 6 one day and 10 the next, it would cost the company overtime hours. We were strictly unapproved for overtime.

So I just said fuck it, and put down 8 to 12, 1 to 5 every single day, regardless of hours worked. I know I did over 40 hours, because I'd usually come in at 10 and leave at 8ish. I loved the work and loved the team and wanted to stay until the job was done. I simply wasn't going to play their stupid game.

At my current job, full time means full time responsibilities - hours actually worked are pretty much up to your and your skills. Plenty of people work about 30-35 hours, and accomplish more with that than I do with 50, because they've been at it twenty years longer than I have.