Overtime pay

If this actually were to come into effect, I see our companu just laying off one of our salaried news side editors who makes mid 30s.
When we hired our most recent sports editor, it was basically a promotion. The big hassle was they were going to raise his pay about $5000 a year, but make him salary. He knew they also weren't hiring a replacement for his position in sports, which meant the SE would end up working about 60 hours a week. He refused to go salaried, because he knew he wouldn't get the OT and it would end up a cut in pay for the hours he'd work. They finally worked out a deal, but I'm not sure what it was.

 

I had a similar situation last year after our SE left. I was making (and still am, as a base salary; haven't had a raise in going on six years now) in the low 30s, and they offered me a news editor position. Figuring I'd make, at most, $4,000 or $5,000 more and probably less than that, it took me about 30 seconds to think it over and politely decline. Besides not wanting to work on the news side, I knew I'd still be working the same amount of hours as being a one-man sports department except I'd be salaried instead of hourly. It just wasn't worth it financially. I'd already had a couple of months of that at that point, and knew what my paychecks looked like just from more or less doing the minimum to get the job done -- i.e., working 50-55 hours a week and getting 30-plus hours of overtime on every paycheck.
The gamble paid off. I wound up making about $10,000 in overtime last year and cracking the $40,000 barrier for the first time in my working life. I passed my previous high in September.
I'm viewed as the sports editor in my shop now, but to this day I'm still considered a sports/staff writer. I've asked a few times about being formally promoted, but have made it clear that I don't want it if it comes with a salary. At least not one that's less than $50K per year.

 

I see

 

For those of you who are predicting layoffs to offset rules changes, you're damned straight. You also need to investigate your health insurance. There's certain cost controls built in where for example, once upon a time if you had recurring allergy issues and would get an injection, now you get pills if the cost of your injection is deemed too much by your plan. I'm hoping myself or a family member doesn't get cancer or something really expensive.

 

Or perhaps medical research and technology has improved to the point where instead of a needle, you get a pill.

Kinda like how pills can now be used as an option for an abortion.

As far as cost controls built in for the rules changes, well, that'll be up to the company to decide whether or not the potential loss of productivity will be worth not paying the manager overtime.

 

You make a good point except that pill peddlers represents America's No. 1 industry. When they advertise to people who can't write a prescription, I'm skeptical.

 

Every newspaper sports writer I know works 50-70 hours a week during season and gets paid for 40. Overtime is simply not allowed. You "pretend" to work 40 and that's the way it has to be.

 

Obama is looking at bumping the $23,600 threshold to more than $50,000: Obama's overtime proposal explained and why it matters

 

I was a mid-level manager at a large newspaper company in the early 2000s. As such, I had to go through management assimilation -- I mean, training. One of the trainers, a high-level HR exec, explained it to me this way: "If you have an employee who's on salary, you own them."

 

That's not the way it has to be. Document the hours you work for a couple months. Present them to HR rep and bosses, explain that you need to be paid overtime if you'll work that much. If they fire you, sue the bejesus out of them.

 

I'd also like to note that once you start doing the math on those "70 hour work weeks" it falls apart pretty fast.

I'm not saying it isn't possible as I have pulled 70 hour weeks but not for an entire season or for months on end.

 

Depends how you're calculating the 70-hour week, too. Is it actual time worked, or the "footprint" of the day?
The last two years I've had people leave our paper right in the middle of the spring high school sports season, when there's baseball and softball games three days a week, a slew of other sports to keep tabs on, and a section to do every day. I've carded 50-60 hours pretty consistently both years, but if you were to calculate my commute (an hour each way), as well as the time I'm not on the clock but still not quite free to put the work day to bed because something needs to be done later, and that number easily jumps to about 70.
Still, after two or three months of that I'm ready to burn the place to the ground. Only a small handful of people -- CEO types who don't need to sleep -- can push that pace forever.