Writing 'free' for our newspaper... what the hell?!?

Anyone who voluntarily works off the clock is not only an idiot, but they are fucking things up for their coworkers as well.

 

Most people I know are salaried, so there is no real "clock".

 

Unless I completely misunderstand labor law, which is possible, it's not legal for most of the journalists in a shop to be salaried.

Or rather, they can be salaried but they can't all be exempt from overtime.

 

Maybe I misunderstand them when they discuss it. That's also possible. Not like I have their deals in front of me.

Let's put it this way - most of the journalists I know don't work 40 hour weeks. Most of the great ones don't work those hours either.

 

And they are wrong for doing it that way, unless they exempt, salaried employees or they are being paid for it.

 

Why are they wrong? If you're working on breaking a story that'll make you and your shop look good, are you going to just say, "Oh well, I'm off the clock" and stop? Pick it up the next day? Or two days later? Or after the weekend?

No, you're going to dig and scratch and claw and get that story. And if it's one that creates a shitstorm of follow-up stories, you're going to continue working on it as well.

 

And I'm going to submit every last second of it on my timesheet. And if they give me any crap about that, the subsequent labor complaint and lawsuit would have me set for awhile.

 

Rick's right on this one, folks. If you're not claiming overtime, you're not really doing anybody any favors. You're allowing your company to break the law; you're not getting paid for your work; and nobody's able to make the case that "doing more with less" doesn't work.

Claim your overtime, people. You can't take "hey, thanks for the effort" to the bank.

 

And that said, to the original poster's point:

If you're hourly, you're being paid by the hour, not by the piece. That means you complete the duties you're assigned by your manager, unless you're in a union shop with well-defined work rules governing who does what.

If you're on salary, the company pretty much owns you.

People who squawk "that's not my job" usually aren't afforded maximum protection when layoff time comes around.

 

Not exactly. You can be salaried and still qualify for overtime. A lot of employees out there in a lot of fields are salaried and think they are exempt from OT, but really aren't.

Any journalist who isn't an editor with management responsibilities is probably non-exempt and qualifies for OT pay, even if they are salaried. There's some grey area, but not a lot.

There's a lot of good people on this board who put in a lot of unpaid hours and still got laid off. I don't think it helps much to be a good worker.

Meanwhile, I'm a lazy git who draws a lot of lines in the sand, and I'm still employed with a (crappy) newspaper.

 

There is a lot of gray area, indeed. I've been in the position of having to challenge a position's exempt status and having to defend a position's exempt status, and both were fairly mind-twisting experiences.

The trend in the courts has been lately to rule in favor of the businesses rather than the employees. Will be interesting to see how labor law evolves in the coming years.

Meantime, do your job; do the best you can; and if you work overtime and are eligible to claim it, claim it.

 

My local paper has the prep editor provide free segments for a local TV station with no compensation -- on football Friday nights, which doesn't allow him to begin his actual work until nearly 11... it works both ways.