Supreme Court stops Amazon workers lawsuit

[taustin]

Originally Posted by Barcey

It's not OK that there is employee theft and it hurts the business bottom line. Any measures the company decides to take to minimize the impact should be at the company's expense.

Though, of course, it's more complicated than that. Employers that treat their workers well generally have a lot less trouble with employee theft than those that don't.

I suspect that, in some cases (and Amazon may or may not be among them) a raise in pay and better benefits would be cheaper and more effective than additional security.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It's not always abuse.

I've said so, many times. I've been salaried exempt for 20+ years, and when a new HR director tried to put me on the timeclock, I fought it tooth and nail. I would have, technically, gotten paid more, but not very much more (because my employer does not abuse it at all), and certainly not enough to be worth the hassle of having to keep track of whether or not I had to put my pants on when I got a call on the weekend.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

It is a tradeoff. Legally, they call it terms of employment and it is usually spelled out in the employment agreement.

Not really. Only certain categories of employee are allowed to be salaried exempt, regardless of what they agree to in a contract. There is extensive case law. Generally speaking, one must be a trained professional (either licensed, like a lawyer or an engineer), or be required to have a college degree, or one must be in a supervisory position (spending at least 50% of one's time actually supervising other employees), or meet other, less generic criteria, but generally doing a job that requires specialized skills and has broad discretion in how one does the work. Some states (like California) are far stricter than the federal standards (the federal standard for programmers to be exempt is about half what California's is, for instance).

But simply agreeing in a contract to be exempt is not enough. As a lot of employers have found out the hard way.[/QUOTE]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Those startup employees working 80-100 hours

generally, though not always, qualify for an exempt status. Usually, by way of stock options, making them executives. All too often, though, their exempt status is simply illegal, and they don't know it because they were lied to (or because the people who hired them don't understand the law, either).

Originally Posted by fjtorres

signed up voluntarily. Many of them are millionaires by the time they're 30.

And many more are burned out by the time they're 30, with nothing to show for it.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

More own their houses free and clear by 40. And in silivalley that means something. Not everybody, but a lot.
Others decide the lifestyle is not for them and move on. The resume looks mighty good elsewhere so they're still ahead of the game.

My brother was a mechanical engineer running the maintenance dept at a refinery. Once a year, the place shut down for maintenance for a week. Double shift for everybody. Mechanics and techs got overtime but not him.

Engineers are licensed professional with a college degree. That's one of the categories that can, in fact, be exempt. Do you really believe the company would have paid the mechanics and techs overtime if they weren't required to by law? I suspect that your brother also made quite a bit more than the mechanics and techs, as well (even if they were unionized). Few people with an engineering degree and EIT license are going to work for minimum wage.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Not a problem. Because the rest of the year when things were humming, he'd get extra daytime with his kids. Two vacations a year. A nice salary and house. No time clock. And in many businesses it is, frankly, a status symbol; you are trusted to do your job and earn your keep without the monitoring of a punch card.

And in many businesses, you get worked 80 hours a week with no overtime for the equivalent of less than minimum wage per hour.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

And if it means taking an hour here and there to run errands or go to the doctor nobody blinks. The job getting done and done well is what matters. Sometimes it takes 10 hours, sometimes five. No sitting in the office twiddling thumbs if everything is covered so starting the weekend early is perfectly fine.

And a well run company, yes. And a poorly run company, people who cannot legally be exempt are classified as exempt, worked until they can't take it any more, and paid subsistence wages. There's all kinds, and a lot of companies really don't understand the law.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

My sister runs the entire food and beverage dept at a high end tourist resort.

Sounds like a supervisory position. Which is to say, legally qualified to be exempt. One of the easier categories to be legally exempt, and not have an inherent expectation of high wages, even.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Certified chef among other qualifications. 50 hour weeks are normal for her. 60 hours common. It's not required of her but it *is* what her work ethic demands of her. The salary is good; her satisfaction at being among the best in her business is even better. She knows every job in her department and can and will do it at the drop of a hat as needed. Not everybody is cut out for that but she is a natural at it. She takes pride in her achievements and that comes from her value system. She is hardly unique. Most professionals are similarly driven.

What you seem to be saying is that because you know a couple of people whose employers don't abuse exempt status, nobody else does either. There's quite a bit of case law that suggests otherwise, and in fact, that it's quite common. Not most, I expect, by a long shot, but it's quite common. Ignorance is a far more common reason than deliberate abuse, but the company still benefits from an illegal practice, and that's abusive.

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Exempt status *can* be abused, by the employer *and* the employee. But not every practice is an abuse. Different companies and different jobs have different cultures and practices. You live up to it or move on.

Indeed. Or you can fight for what's owed you, if it's worth more than the cost of the fight. Microsoft pay out $100 to avoid a final ruling that would have cost them more, for instance, though that was over classifying employees as consultants rather than salaried exempt status. But it amounted to the same thing: illegally not paying overtime. Walmart gets sued, on average, 17 times every day, mostly over labor practices.

If one looks at the number of companies that abuse their employees, I suspect the percentage is fairly low. But if one looks at the number of employees subject to abusive labor practices (not even counting paying subsistence wages at legal rates), I suspect that percentage is a lot higher, because every really big company has a lot of problems.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by rcentros

You pay people for being on the job -- standing in line, waiting to leave. Line drawn.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court disagrees.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Key word here being "salaried." Normally salaried workers agree to unpaid overtime when they're hired. Completely different than hourly workers.

They may agree to it, but that doesn't make it legal. There is a difference between being salaried and being salaried exempt. Anybody can be salaried. Only certain categories of employees can be exempt.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by rcentros

Salaried workers and hourly workers work under completely different circumstances. Salaried workers usually make quite a bit more for their "free" overtime.

Usually, but it's a) not universal, and b) not actually required.

And salaried is not necessarily salaried exempt. Salaried (without exempt) means you do get overtime, but don't lose pay for missing part of a day's work (or an entire day's work, depending on the employer's policies).

Not everyone is allowed to be salaried exempt.

[taustin]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I think I have it figured out ... Amazon could skin kittens alive and force their employees to watch without pay and you would find a way to apologize for them.

And they could cure cancer. bring peace to the middle east, and raise the dead, and some people would still call them evil.

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I think I have it figured out ... Amazon could skin kittens alive and force their employees to watch without pay and you would find a way to apologize for them.

No, I will simply say that anyone who claims any such thing is mentally deranged and lacking any credibility. It is a ludicrous claim,... which is why you used it as an example.

I wouldn't say people are deranged and deserving of time in a rubber room, because they think Amazon is being unfair.
Although I happen to give Amazon policymakers more credit for basic human intelligence than you do -- to wit, that they wouldn't spend money on these security scans if they didn't think it were necessary to stop merchandise from going on adventures to peoples' houses.

And assuming it is indeed necessary to check people... then, as Hitch said: why should Amazon reward the employees by paying them for the time spent stopping them from stealing?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by rcentros

I call it a "fundamental load of BS." Again, the "reality of life" is what you make it. Let's see what happens when/if Amazon employees threaten to unionize. I'll bet Amazon could figure out how to move that time clock to the outside of the screening line double quick.

I suppose that is possible -- but that wouldn't magically cause it to be "right" that they do so.

The "reality of life" is when things are fair even when they might not particularly be to your liking. You cannot "make it" unfair by threatening to unionize.

You can argue that it is unfair, and we may just have to agree to disagree. Just please do not insult my intelligence by claiming that it became fair through a threat...

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by rcentros

In the case of airports it's the government, not any company that inconveniences airline customers. And there's a difference between supplying what's supposed to be security against terrorism and forcing everyone to be screened to protect Amazon's bottom line. Employee theft is not a new thing. Deal with it in the way they've always dealt with it. Don't force your employees to give up hundreds of hours of unpaid time for the crimes of the few. It's fundamentally unfair and it amounts to theft -- Amazon stealing from their employees (employees sell their time).

Wait, so it is all right for the government to do it?

And they are thieving our time too...


What about those train tickets?

[eschwartz]

Originally Posted by taustin

So, in your opinion, if Amazon is stolen from, it's OK for them to steal form others who did not steal from them?

Two wrongs make a right?

Amazon is not stealing anything, the employees are welcome to go elsewhere.

It is called "the consequence of our actions".

I believe Hitch mentioned something about blind eyes... I agree.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by taustin

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court disagrees.

The Supreme Court has been wrong before.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by taustin

And they could cure cancer. bring peace to the middle east, and raise the dead, and some people would still call them evil.

I know Amazon is no worse (probably better) than most others but, when they're wrong, I have no problem pointing that out. I've never felt driven to become a groupie of any corporation.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

The "reality of life" is when things are fair even when they might not particularly be to your liking. You cannot "make it" unfair by threatening to unionize.

The reality of this case is that it is NOT FAIR to force employees, who sell their time by the hour, to be held at Amazon for half an hour (or an hour, whatever it is) a day without getting paid for their time. You can attempt to justify this as "fair" in any way you want -- but that does not magically transform an unfair practice into a fair one. Point. Blank. Period.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

Wait, so it is all right for the government to do it?

And they are thieving our time too...

What about those train tickets?

You have trouble keeping on point, don't you? I never said it alright for the government to do it. I said it was the government doing it, not the airlines. I'm glad I could clear this up this point for you.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by eschwartz

It is called "the consequence of our actions".

It could only be called the "consequence of our actions" if every employee stole from Amazon. Since that is very highly doubtful, it is actually the consequence of someone else's actions. It's a form of "collective guilt."

From Wikipedia ...

Collective responsibility in the form of collective punishment is often used as a disciplinary measure in closed institutions, e.g. boarding schools (punishing a whole class for the actions of a single unknown pupil), military units, prisons (juvenile and adult), psychiatric facilities, etc. The effectiveness and severeity of this measure may vary greatly, but it often breeds distrust and isolation among their members, and is almost always a sign of authoritarian tendencies in the institution or its home society. For example, in the Soviet Gulags, all members of a brigada (work unit) were punished for bad performance of any of its members.

Collective punishment is also practiced in situation of war, economic sanctions, etc., presupposing the existence of collective guilt. Collective guilt, or guilt by association, is the controversial collectivist idea that groups of humans can bear guilt above and beyond the guilt of individual members, and hence an individual holds responsibility for what other members of their group have done, even if they themselves didn't do this. Contemporary systems of criminal law accept the principle that guilt shall only be personal. Others view groups as being entities in themselves (an entitative group), capable of holding guilt or responsibility independent of any of the group's members.

Just put the damned time clock on the outside of the screening line. Problem solved.