“As the system is set up now, competition almost forces employers to hire as few workers as possible and work them as many hours as possible.”
Read More#OurTimeCounts: A live conversation about our work schedules — and our lives
Have you worked in retail, food, or coffee?Then you’re invited to join us on Wednesday, September 12th for a live conversation about fluctuating hours, last-minute call-ins, clopening shifts, and other ways unstable & unpredictable schedules affect our lives — and what we can do to make our work schedules better!
Read MoreOfficial comments on overtime rulemaking
Because the threshold effectively does not exist, all an employer has to do is decide an employee’s job duties make them “exempt”, and then — poof — they don’t need to pay anything extra for any extra hours over 40 in a week.
Read Moreit meant moving up to full-time hours
Some people had other full-time jobs, so they were scheduled on the weekends. A couple other people were offered at least 25 hours/week. And for me and a couple other coworkers, it meant moving up to full-time hours. One of my coworkers had been working three different jobs before secure scheduling, and afterwards she was finally able to get a steady 40-hour schedule, so she was able to quit her other two jobs, which was a huge relief for her.
Read MoreTell L&I: Nobody should have to work without getting paid for it.
We're asking the state to require that any worker who’s paid less than three times the minimum wage (about $75,000 a year) gets time-and-a-half if they work more than 40 hours a week — regardless of whether or not they're hourly or salaried, and no matter what fancy title their boss gives them.
Read More"We were generally required to work 45 hours per week or so, but could work as many as 70 to 80."
“Because it didn’t cost my employer anything to keep me working whatever hours they wanted, they didn’t have to take my time into consideration. And so they didn’t.”
Read More"my annual salary was $34,000 a year, with no paid overtime"
As a full-time employee in administration and development, my annual salary was $34,000 a year, with no paid overtime. I was responsible for training volunteers outside of normal work hours, working programmed events that took place from 6 - 10 PM, and administering our annual gala and other fundraising events associated with a major capital campaign, so I frequently worked overtime without compensation.
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"In exchange, I worked 60-90 hours every single week."
"I was a chef/kitchen manager at a restaurant in the Ballard neighborhood in Seattle and got paid a salary of $29,000 a year.
In exchange, I worked 60-90 hours every single week.”
Read More"Businesses can never pay you what your time is worth — your time is invaluable. But they don’t even try."
They try to make folks exempt so they don’t have to pay extra. The way everything works, there’s so much turnover in doing the job. So if I can’t fill a shift any other way, then I have to fill in the shift myself. The shift has to be filled. If one of my hourly staff does it, it’s overtime pay. If I do it, it’s free for the company. But it’s the same shift.
Read More"don't be too hard on Amazon"
Amazon's newest cost-cutting measure seems to be replacing PR hacks with a hand-selected crew of warehouse workers who are taking to Twitter to defend their hero, "Mr. Bezos":
If the whole thing seems a little creepy, don't worry — it's all about efficiency. Social media crisis management is the perfect side gig for an Amazon worker: their bosses can make them Tweet from the nearest restroom and/or water bottle without wasting time on a bathroom break! (Just kidding. Probably.)
You might be thinking, hey, at least they're taking in some extra money to supplement the wages they're making at warehouses in places like Kent, WA (where Michelle and Phil work, according to their Twitter bios). Bezos must be shelling out some of the $143 billion he's worth for warehouse workers to spend hours shilling for him on Twitter — right? According to the "ambassadors," the answer is no:
Amazon's PR staff almost certainly gets paid in the six-figure range — so why are they making warehouse workers defend the richest human in the world for free?
Click here to Tweet at Bezos & his ambassa-bots: "Hey @JeffBezos, if you're going to ask your lowest-wage Amazon workers to spend hours defending you on Twitter, the least you could do is pay them for it."
Mr. Bezos probably has a few dollars to spare. He can afford it.