Sports editor's OT lawsuit against Gannett

Moddy: That is me, to a T. I work at a shop whose company will have taken 26 furlough days in the last 13 months at the end of this quarter. My staff is myself and two 40-hour guys. Staffing for 7 days, for the largest county in my state, leaves me no alternative, if I want my section to remain what it is. My two guys bust their asses in their 40-hour slots and do a fabulous job.

I do, so I do the work. I am being pushes closer, though, to wanting to less and less.

The only reason they don't do what I do is because I refuse to allow them to do it without being paid. If it needs to be done when their shifts are finished, I do it.

Am I "stupid," as some have said previously? Perhaps so, but I am holding on to the last remnants of my once-proud daily product until they rip it out of my cold, dead hands.

Foolish, I know...

 

When we had furloughs last year, and first quarter this year, we weren't allowed to work off the clock. We couldn't even call the office.

Last year, in order not to let things slide too bad in my beat while I was on furlough, I piecemealed the days, only taking one in a given week. This year, I said screw it and took a whole week off.

 

I've never known an excellent white-collar worker who worked 40-hour weeks.
In the steel business, My dad went into his office at 7 each day and left at 5:30, and was on call a lot of the time. He always worked 50-60 hours.
In PR, my wife goes in at 7:15 and leaves for home about 5:30 and often works until 6-6:30.
I've never understood why salaried newspaper reporters, who must deal with news that doesn't punch a time clock, think they're supposed to be done in 40 hours.

 

Twoback:
Did they get paid for those extra hours?

 

People at our sports shop work, wink wink, 40 hours a week. Yeah they do. Their signature on their time card makes it so.

 

If anyone's keen on working for free, why not offer to take a salary reduction to help the company?

It's the same thing. You're giving away your services with free labor by working more than 40 hours without pay. Pride may prevent you from walking away. But you're giving away your skills, training and professionalism to people who do. not. care.

Does any manager thank you for working 15-20 hours extra? Occasionally with a note or something scribbled on a good-looking layout or story.

But those same ones will be quick to chastise when you don't get it done in 40 hours, production starts slipping or you say things can't be done without more manpower.

 

I totally agree with BTE. Glad I'm not the SE at Stagger Lee's shop either.

 

I doubt few do.

But someone working on his off day because his beat fired its coach has every right to expect comp time for those hours worked.

That's all I demand. Money for time worked, and money or comp time for time worked in excess of 40 hours. Doesn't even have to be time and a half. Just an acknowledgement that says, "Yes, we know you worked X, so here is X to compensate you for it." If a company cannot do that, what's the use?

 

As a Tribune paper reader, this drives me nuts. There are some days, particularly heavy on "Sunbelt" type sports, where the whole damn digest is duplicated elsewhere in the paper.

 

If management want to offer me a salaried position and I accept, I'd put in every hour needed and then some. But I'm hourly, and I'll be damned if I'm going to work off the clock.

 

But that's the problem in Gannett, specifically. Gannett's way of getting past the OT problem is by creating as many "management" positions as possible and dump the entire workload on them.

Example: My sports department has three people, two of which are "managers" (exempt from overtime). In our newsroom, errrr Information Center, there are 21 total employees (counting the three or four who work mainly on niche monthlies). Of those 21, nine of them have "editor" titles of some sort. As recently as four months ago, we had 11 "managers" of the 21 people in the newsroom. There's something fundamentally, and probably illegally, wrong with 50% of your newsroom being exempt from collecting overtime.

Care to take a wild guess which employees are the ones working 50-60 hours a week to make sure the products get out the door on a daily basis?

 

Did they get paid overtime?
Are you kidding?