Employment in America
Aug. 20th, 2010 11:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
krowfaceThink about this for a second. I mean really THINK about this:
1) Your employer is NOT required to give you any notice, or any severance pay. Some do provide severance, but that is purely at their discretion and often accompanied with "sign or you don't get your money" waivers of corporate liability for your termination. So if you suspect you've been fired for an illegal reason, too bad, if you want to make your rent and car payments you'd better sign on the dotted line.
2) Employers in the U.S. are not required to provide ANY paid time off. No paid sick days, no paid vacation time, no paid maternity leave, no paid federal holidays. Many employers, even most, provide one or more of these things as a courtesy, but the number of employers offering none of them is rising as the unemployment rate rises and people become willing to take any job at all, even one that views its employees as chattel who don't deserve a paid day off once in a while.
3) Do you work for a company with fewer than 15 employees? Your company is allowed (in most states) to discriminate against employees on the basis of race, sex, national origin, pregnancy, et cetera. Title VII of the civil rights act, which prohibits such discrimination, exempts private businesses with fewer than 15 employees. In other words, if you employ only 14 total people, you can simply say "only white people allowed." By the way, that 15 number doesn't include independent contractors or partners, so you can have a fairly large employer that is still allowed to discriminate as long as most of the people working there are independent contractors. What's more, no one's agitating to change this.
4) If you receive tips as part of your normal employment, your direct wage is generally $2.13 per hour. Yes, $2.13 an hour. Hope your tips are real nice.
5) Many, MANY jobs are not required to pay any overtime wage regardless of how many hours you work. This doesn't just apply to executives and managers and creative types. Projectionists, carnies, cab drivers, and a host of other occupations are also exempted and require no overtime wage whatsoever.
6) Youth under age 20 in their first 90 days of employment are allowed to make $4.25 an hour.
7) Only 21 of 50 states require ANY meal or rest break time for adult employees (including both paid and unpaid breaks). Four more require breaks for minors but not adults. There is also no federal restriction on how long employers may keep employees at work or how many hours an employer can require of an employee per week. In other words, while most employers do not do this, it is 100% legal in many states to employ someone for a 16 hour shift with no breaks allowed.
In other words: if you're not from the U.S., however bad you thought U.S. labor protections were, they're worse. If you're an American and used to employers who voluntarily provide one or more non-required things, look at the trend in employer/employee relations over the last 10 years: more independent contractors and temps, fewer full time employees with benefits. If you don't think your company will ever stop giving breaks or vacation time, just wait -- after another few years of high unemployment, non-required perquisites will dry up even worse than they already have.
The worst part of this: if this gets replies, I guarantee a number of them will be from people hastening to tell us why these policies are perfectly okay and how the right of employers to exploit workers in any way is just fine, because employees "chose" to work in such a place. We'll hear that if employers were required to provide such things, they would all go out of business and employ fewer people. Nations offering substantially more protection to employees do not seem to have these problems, but that won't stop people from making the argument (or bringing up a single example of a country with good labor laws and high unemployment as PROOF POSITIVE that such a system is non-viable).
People have become so attached to their own oppression that they view it as a badge of honor. They will show up to fight for their employers' right to exploit them. And they will convince themselves that standing up for big companies instead of individual employees is patriotic. They will ask for a little sick leave as supplicants, grateful for the crumbs cast off by an employer who views them as numbers on a ledger.
It doesn't have to be this way. Non-Americans: what are employment laws like in your country? How much of what I've posted above strikes you as downright awful?"
1) Your employer is NOT required to give you any notice, or any severance pay. Some do provide severance, but that is purely at their discretion and often accompanied with "sign or you don't get your money" waivers of corporate liability for your termination. So if you suspect you've been fired for an illegal reason, too bad, if you want to make your rent and car payments you'd better sign on the dotted line.
2) Employers in the U.S. are not required to provide ANY paid time off. No paid sick days, no paid vacation time, no paid maternity leave, no paid federal holidays. Many employers, even most, provide one or more of these things as a courtesy, but the number of employers offering none of them is rising as the unemployment rate rises and people become willing to take any job at all, even one that views its employees as chattel who don't deserve a paid day off once in a while.
3) Do you work for a company with fewer than 15 employees? Your company is allowed (in most states) to discriminate against employees on the basis of race, sex, national origin, pregnancy, et cetera. Title VII of the civil rights act, which prohibits such discrimination, exempts private businesses with fewer than 15 employees. In other words, if you employ only 14 total people, you can simply say "only white people allowed." By the way, that 15 number doesn't include independent contractors or partners, so you can have a fairly large employer that is still allowed to discriminate as long as most of the people working there are independent contractors. What's more, no one's agitating to change this.
4) If you receive tips as part of your normal employment, your direct wage is generally $2.13 per hour. Yes, $2.13 an hour. Hope your tips are real nice.
5) Many, MANY jobs are not required to pay any overtime wage regardless of how many hours you work. This doesn't just apply to executives and managers and creative types. Projectionists, carnies, cab drivers, and a host of other occupations are also exempted and require no overtime wage whatsoever.
6) Youth under age 20 in their first 90 days of employment are allowed to make $4.25 an hour.
7) Only 21 of 50 states require ANY meal or rest break time for adult employees (including both paid and unpaid breaks). Four more require breaks for minors but not adults. There is also no federal restriction on how long employers may keep employees at work or how many hours an employer can require of an employee per week. In other words, while most employers do not do this, it is 100% legal in many states to employ someone for a 16 hour shift with no breaks allowed.
In other words: if you're not from the U.S., however bad you thought U.S. labor protections were, they're worse. If you're an American and used to employers who voluntarily provide one or more non-required things, look at the trend in employer/employee relations over the last 10 years: more independent contractors and temps, fewer full time employees with benefits. If you don't think your company will ever stop giving breaks or vacation time, just wait -- after another few years of high unemployment, non-required perquisites will dry up even worse than they already have.
The worst part of this: if this gets replies, I guarantee a number of them will be from people hastening to tell us why these policies are perfectly okay and how the right of employers to exploit workers in any way is just fine, because employees "chose" to work in such a place. We'll hear that if employers were required to provide such things, they would all go out of business and employ fewer people. Nations offering substantially more protection to employees do not seem to have these problems, but that won't stop people from making the argument (or bringing up a single example of a country with good labor laws and high unemployment as PROOF POSITIVE that such a system is non-viable).
People have become so attached to their own oppression that they view it as a badge of honor. They will show up to fight for their employers' right to exploit them. And they will convince themselves that standing up for big companies instead of individual employees is patriotic. They will ask for a little sick leave as supplicants, grateful for the crumbs cast off by an employer who views them as numbers on a ledger.
It doesn't have to be this way. Non-Americans: what are employment laws like in your country? How much of what I've posted above strikes you as downright awful?"
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no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 05:11 pm (UTC)point 1: federal overtime laws are overseen, regulated and enforced under the Fair Labor Standards Act, specifically with the Amendment from 2004, by the U.S. Department of Labor, Wage and Hour Division. Federal Overtime Law specifically states that overtime starts at hour 40 regardless, however employers do not have to pay overtime for weekends, nights, or holidays unless those hours exceed 40 (this is to avoid unfairly penalizing businesses who do either the majority of their business at night (movie theatres) or weekends (most mall stores, etc).)
Those "many jobs" who don't have to pay overtime are usually because they are contracted positions. for instance cab drivers contract out their own cabs, and determine their own hourly rates after paying the cab house whatever the flat rate contract is. the cab drivers do not determine how much to charge, that is regulated by whatever city or county agencies issue cab licenses, but they can determine areas to cruise where they have more opportunities to pick up easy fares (for instance hotel cabwalkups) and whether to take dispatch calls or not, depending on the way the dispatch is set up. The reason these employees do not make overtime is they make no set hourly wage (now, there are some cab companies set up differently, etc. but this is the classic model of a big city cab company) so what exactly do you double or add when they work overtime? overtime is usually calculated at a percentage of hourly.
Second: companies can make you work mandatory overtime, but this totally leaves out the fact that employee/employer mandatory overtime lawsuits are on the rise and especially judgements against employers, and there are class actions suits out there for most companies and industries that you can join for like $25 if you are forced to work mandatory overtime. This also leaves out that the reason there are no mandatory overtime laws is because unions traditionally fill the role of setting mandatory overtime and overtime pay with contract negotiations. most industries where there is a lot of mandatory overtime (electricians, plumbers and pipefitting get overtime like CRAZY, ironworkers, steelworkers, roadworkers, etc) have serious union representation to secure their contracts. pretending this isn't a factor and that all industries have to work overtime just willynilly without choice is naive at best and actively maliciously ignorant at worst.
the tipping thing seriously gets me too, because this is one of the most prevalent lies on the internet. if you receive no tips to make up your wage to minimum standard, THE BURDEN IS ON YOU to file a wage amendment form with the IRS using the REQUIRED BY LAW kept records on all tips you received by your employer (and trust me, they have this, because THEY are required by law to furnish it when they do THEIR taxes to prove it was fair to pay you below min standard, to pay SS, and to pay into UI taxes.) Filing a wage amendment form is pretty easy, and what happens is that it is then on your employer to make up the lost wages received from not getting tipped to bring you back up to minimum wage. most people do not realize this and they just let the irs have this money, and let their employer get away with not having to pay them. the irs merely makes a prediction on how much of tipping there will be, based on the number of checks from the business they can verify. sure, waitstaff make a technical hourly wage of some $2.30, but if the tipping percentages are correct usually their actual takehome is more along the lines of $10/hr or more.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 05:11 pm (UTC)Are labor laws in the us awesome? no they suck and there is definitely room for improvement. but please don't try and tell me that they are better than labor laws in colombia or argentina where you are also required to work mandatory overtime, but there they don't have to pay you, and sometimes they just don't pay you at all and shoot your family instead, or even labor laws in mexico where the work week is 50hr before overtime, and you only get 1 weekend day per 6 days worked off. however, mexico does have some other provisions that are awesome for working, which would also be awesome except you know, there are not a ton of jobs or overdeveloped big industry there even in big cities. or labor law in uruguay where retaliation for striking for labor rights is usually met with incredible violence and martial law.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-20 08:02 pm (UTC)as a skilled worker who got laid off under shady circumstances and haven't been able to find work since, i'm very fucking jaded about the state of labour here in america.
but i know that's just me.
no subject
Date: 2010-08-22 06:41 am (UTC)It's clear to me that the U.S. is going in the direction of feudalism. If anyone tries to justify it, that would be because that person is too young to remember a time when this country had higher standards and fairer economic policy.
And a thriving middle class (partly because union membership in the workforce was around 25% & partly because the tax rate on the wealthiest taxpayers was around 70%.