Part of an occasional series about yours truly.
Q. Has Jim vanished? No posts today?
A. Indeed, I'm around. But it's been a slow-news period. These are the dog days of August, after all, and many of you are on vacation. That's a good time for me to take a little break, too. Before we know it, it'll be Labor Day, and then things will pick up again.
Still, I've been doing some very interesting late-night reading: Hundreds of pages of court documents related to a lawsuit against one of the U.S. Community Publishing newspapers. This involves a complaint brought by an editor who claims he was fired for reporting unpaid overtime wages owed to other employees. Among many mysteries it unwinds: What happens when a publisher resigns unexpectedly. I've still got much more to read, though, before I can post anything.
Got a question for FAQs About Me? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write jimhopkins[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the rail, upper right.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
9 comments:
Jim says: "Proceed with caution; this is a free-for-all comment zone. I try to correct or clarify incorrect information. But I can't catch everything. Please keep your posts focused on Gannett and media-related subjects. Note that I occasionally review comments in advance, to reject inappropriate ones. And I ignore hostile posters, and recommend you do, too."
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This is definitely a busman's holiday: reading public documents while on vacation. For an investigative reporter, however, there are few things more interesting than leafing through information that witnesses have been compelled to deliver.
ReplyDeleteThey should turn this into a class action.
ReplyDeleteSame stuff happening everywhere in the chain, including our sweatshop, IMHO.
Worked about 29 hours on a recent weekend, paid for 16.
Sure, I could have done a crappy job in 16 hours, and just walked out.
But if I had: I'd have been yelled at. "You're better than that!"
And if I tried to get paid for the time I put in?
My boss would have hit the roof.
What's the alternative?
Quit, and never get another newspaper job again.
Go get 'em Jim.
ReplyDeleteI refused to work unpaid overtime, and was told to bring in my stuff (computer, phone, etc.) the next day. It devastated me, but thanks to Jim's work with Gannettblog, I now see that this just might be a problem throughout Gannett. If I had it to do over, I would not put in one single hour for free since I got fired the very first time I refused to work for free.
ReplyDeleteOne company trick is to make people "exempt" from overtime and yet they're often making just a bit more than the hourly wage earners.
ReplyDeleteJournalism is not a 9-5 proposition, but people should be paid for their work. A lot of Westchester folks cashed in big time - several grand per - about 10 years ago when an employee blew the whistle to the federal Department of Labor.
I think Gannett looks at this as an acceptable expense when they get away it most of the time.
I have a very hard time believing that anyone could be fired the next day for refusing to work unpaid overtime -- if for no other reason, the fact that HR would not work that quickly.
ReplyDeleteAre you suggesting that there were no extenuating circumstances, that you were a model, non-exempt employee up until the day you were fired, and that you refused to work overtime that you were told, point blank, you would not be paid for, and were fired immediately?
Hey 5:41--
ReplyDeleteWere you an hourly employee or a manager?
Managers are exempt employees, you know; they can be asked to work all sorts of OT because they're on salary.
Not all "exempt" employees are managers. A lot of them in Westchester are basically reporters who are given the title "special writer."
ReplyDeleteThat means that they're so special that they can work without overtime. What it really means is that in Gannett's eyes they're earning too much because they've been around for years grabbing up those 2 percent annual raises.
There has long been a broad difference between what the rank and file get and the managers. I had one editor say I'd probably get the usual 5 percent raise. Well, for him (a mediocre manager at best) 5 percent was the usual. For those in the reporting ranks, a great year was 3 percent, and a typical year was 2 percent.
Now it seems that everyone should grovel to remain for a wage freeze or less than 2 percent.
Overtime????? Suck it up for the good of the company! How can Gannett afford to pay overtime?
As stated under the subheading of:
ReplyDeleteSurvey / How often does your boss discuss OT?
Anonymous said...
Where I was, if you needed to work OT, instead of paying you for the OT hours worked, they would tell you to come in later that very next day. Example: If you worked 3 hours OT, the next day, instead of coming in at 9 A.M. you would come in at 12 Noon! Some people had so many OT hours accumulated and because of the specific job they had, the company broke down and paid them the OT because they badly needed them there to execute the work so that the work flow wouldn't get backed up! SMH (Shaking My Head)
8/11/2010 10:14 AM
Anonymous said...
""Anonymous 8/11/2010 10:14 AM said: "Where I was, if you needed to work OT, instead of paying you for the OT hours worked, they would tell you to come in later that very next day. Example: If you worked 3 hours OT, the next day, instead of coming in at 9 A.M. you would come in at 12 Noon!"
I could be wrong but doesn't that company still owe those people/that person money?
Think about it!
If the person worked 3 hours OT and was told to come in the next day 3 hours later because they weren't paying OT, and as per the company policy when they do pay OT, The OT pay is time and a half, then that person got cheated out of 1 1/2 more hours or 1 1/2 more hours of pay! Hence, instead of coming in 3 hours later, they should have reported 4 1/2 hours later because OT is time and a half! ""
Oh boy............what a mess!!!!!!
8/12/2010 9:40 AM