In an e-mail to me, the reader describes "highly unethical if not illegal'' H.R. practices at their Gannett newspaper. I'm withholding the paper's name to protect the writer's identity:I think the ratio of salaried managers to hourly employees is off the charts. Lower-middle managers at our paper spend an incredible amount of time producing the paper. Most of them perform their actual scheduling and managing duties at the end of a 10-12 hour day producing the paper. These production duties often extend into six and seven-day weeks, especially during holidays and vacations, as the paper doesn't want to give holiday pay to hourly workers, so they pressure managers to cover the shifts. Its ugly and miserable.
Does this happen in your workplace? Please post your replies in the comments section, below. To e-mail confidentially, write gannettblog[at]gmail[dot-com]; see Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the green sidebar, upper right.
Of course it happens in our shop. I know of one employee who was "promoted" to a salary position just to keep that employee from being able to claim OT.
ReplyDeleteWe still have people at our shop on salary and they don't supervise anyone. They were managers at some point, but were demoted for whatever reason and are still on salary. And of course, those people are the ones that work 12-hour days and six-day weeks.
At one point, we had exactly one more "manager" than we had hourly employees at our paper.
I may be receiving bad information, but I've always been told in order to be a salaried employee (IE a manager-type), you must supervise at the very minimum three people. If that's the case, then our paper has been breaking the law for decades.
The production department at the CN has two, yes that's two, production managers! And they're one of the smallest and least profitable papers in the state of NJ. So there's still hope for all of you out there in Gannett Land! Fairy Tales can come true, it can happen to you....
ReplyDeleteIsn't there also something in the OT laws about creative control? Or that you have to have the ability to hire and fire? My salaried ACE boss sure doesn't have that.
ReplyDeleteI don't understand the bellyaching. If you didn't want the salary position with all that it brought with it (especially, I might note, the raise) why did you accept it? It is well understood in my office that these positions require a lot of work. Did someone hold a gun to your head and force you to take the promotion? Jeez, you guys complain about everything, including the fact that the grass turns green in the spring.
ReplyDeleteActually, there IS pressure to take the salaried position at many papers.
ReplyDeleteAnd it happens all the time, that these salaried people work WAY over 40 hours a week. Especially holidays. The EE or whoever tells them to flat out so the hourly workers won't have overtime.
In many states it is a violation of Wage and Hour laws.
But the complaint has to come from someone....
Gannett skirts wage and hour laws. Period. A lot of us know that because we were the victims of the violations.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you going to do about it? That's the question.
In at least two earlier posts, Jim gave contact information for an attorney who supposedly is investigating the OT situation. Maybe he could post it again.
I hesitated, but then shared my story with the attorney. Win or lose, that in and of itself was empowering.
I'm a big fan of discussion and reaching compromises. That didn't work for me with Gannett, a company that I believe bullies and intimidates.
As the organization flattened at CN through the 1990s, some people who were supposedly elevated to a higher title had to keep doing the work of both titles. Unpaid OT for reporters was rampant until some federal law on uncompensated OT made them nervous. Then people began getting sent home on Wednesday despite having assignments and deadlines from Metro, Biz and Enterprise desks. Some fun! Sort of like walking 10 miles to school in a blizzard - every day!
ReplyDeleteAt my newspaper, one of the directors routinely notes that "managers are expected to put in 55 hours a week." Which I suppose is reasonable, at times. But here's the thing: That particular manager and her main crony often leave at 3 p.m. for kids' things or other stuff. The rest of us middle managers get no such benefit. Pretty frustrating. My understanding is this round of layoff will hit middle managers hard. Maybe then the uppers managers will have to do more work.
ReplyDeleteBy the way, Jim, the profit margins stuff is just fascinating, fascinating. I think most of would be grateful in many cases to be making even one-third of what the papers are making in our stock portfolios...Maybe newspapers will have to be more realistic in what they consider a good profit.
At the Gannett paper I worked at, hourly employees had so much work to do...they worked overtime in cognito. For example, in advertising, they would not rehire for a job and then shove the work on one person. In order to make their advertising goal, they would work 4-5 hours of overtime. This is rampant throughout the paper.
ReplyDeleteIs this news? I don't think so. And yes middles are paid more but in most cases the raise amounts to about 3-5 hours of OT. Compare that to what you end of doing which is working 50 to 60 on in my case 65 hours a week.
ReplyDeleteIt's why I left. I was basically told staff could not have OT. Was I told you have to do the work for them point blank? No, but it was my responsibility that the work be done and the staff could not have OT, so of course I had to do it. I was a 15-vet editor/manager doing right out of J-school stuff for hours before I left at night.
And just like was said before, I was there when some other managers came in and there when they left every single day. Who was leaving? The ee's and me's pets. The very people that I garaurantee will still be there when the layoffs are over -- because they sucked up to the higher ups.
Jim's original posting describes my life and those of other supervisors in my newsroom. Unfortunately.
ReplyDeleteMany of us on salary don't supervise anyone and have little creative responsibility.
ReplyDeleteHere's what I've never figured out about OT, though. What's with the freak-out from HR if an exempt employee works an OT shift for OT pay in a job other than their own?
We've had vacation vacancies on the copy desk that desk supervisors have trouble filling because there are so few non-exempt people on staff to beg to take the shift. The company absolutely forbids a qualified exempt worker to fill the shift, even those of us who don't earn a high salary to be troubled by our time-and-a-half. Why? It's obviously not about the $$$ if they are paying OT to cover it either way.
Not to be flip, but regarding the question "Does this happen in your workplace?"
ReplyDeleteDuh.
It's why my poor dog has learned to cross her legs for my 9 a.m.-8 p.m. shift. That's a "normal" day. If anything goes off the rails, it's 9, 10, 11 p.m. 9 p.m. happens a couple of times a week.
Let the pooch out at lunch? What is this "lunch" of which you speak?
I may be receiving bad information, but I've always been told in order to be a salaried employee (IE a manager-type), you must supervise at the very minimum three people. If that's the case, then our paper has been breaking the law for decades.
ReplyDelete11/29/2008 2:11 PM
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This is incorrect.
There's no question Gannett and probably many other companies knowingly and deliberately violate the letter and intent of wage-and-hour law.
ReplyDeleteThe only issue, as I see it, is when and how does it become actionable. Under the Bush administration, a complaint only serves to smoke out the complainers for retaliation.
Now, even if the Obama administration starts enforcing federal laws, I think we have to ask if the company has enough cash flow to actually pay the back wages, fines or even only the just pay going forward. At this stage in the economic crumble, it's doubtful the bellyaching is going to get us anything tangible.
It does, however, seem to have an intangible effect at my paper. Bosses have been more considerate since this Minnesota law firm's link has been shared here:
Anonymous said...
Here's where I sent my OT story. Yes, I did get a response back.
selander@nka.com
Nickols Kaster is the name of the firm.
(I got the information from something Jim posted in February. You could look back and get the details)
11/19/2008 11:11 PM
Personally, I'd like to see our back pay taken straight from the hide of the CEOs of the few investment companies that comprise Gannett's controlling stock interests. As long as they're allowed to hide behind that curtain in Oz, nothing is going to change short of revolutions as seen worldwide in the Enlightenment.
Does this happen? Oh, yes. Will it continue to happen after the reduction later this week? Only more often. It is sad because so many middle managers are missing seeing their children grow up, missing time with their partners, missing out on having a life.
ReplyDelete12:34 PM
ReplyDeleteI don't feel one bit sorry for anyone who has legal remedies available, but doesn't use them.
Unfortunely, it looks like Gannett will continue the practice of requiring long work hours (beyond 40 hours per week) until courageous people collectively say "No. You can't do that to any of us anymore."
Keep an eye out. Bush may be planting new land mines in Wage and Hour as we type: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/11/30/bush-labor-regulations-violate/
ReplyDeletei lost a great boss who already was working 50+ hours a week and then they dumped on another supervisor's work and the workweek went to 70 or 80. a few months later, gci was told to take the double job and shove it.
ReplyDelete"supervisors" in gannett truly are not any such thing under strictly construed labor law -- can't hire, fire or discipline without clearing it with much higher authorities. maybe the obama administration will give labor law some teeth again and gannett will get bitten.
About two years ago, during the whole info center conversion, management put a handful of reporters on salary to cut down on overtime at our paper.
ReplyDeleteThese people have NO supervisory responsibilities. The reporters didn't have a choice about accepting a "promotion" as 3:11 implied; it was either accept the terms or look for a job elsewhere.
At my paper, we're constantly told to take comp time in lieu of overtime pay. So when we go over the 40-hour mark, we're expected to find some time the next week to make up for the time lost.
ReplyDeleteNot only is this illegal, it's also impractical; there's no way to carve out comp time in our overloaded schedules. Ultimately people either don't take the comp time or they do a subpar job on their stories - or both.