From: James Rogers (jamesr@best.com)
Date: Fri Feb 27 1998 - 22:18:43 MST
At 09:54 PM 2/25/98 -0800, Paul Hughes wrote:
>What I find interesting, is why haven't IT workers, especially
'Microserfs' formed
>some kind of union or protection scheme to save themselves from increasing
>exploitation and possible termination? One thing is for certain, there
has never
>been a more prosperous or intelligent workforce as exists withing the IT
>industry. You would think that as soon as Microsoft proposes to eliminate
>overtime pay, that 20,000 workers would then go on strike and essentially
shut
>down Microsoft - wouldn't this be crippling? After all isn't there a
severe IT
>shortage that we all keep hearing about?
They eliminated overtime pay for contractors making more than ~$27/hr. As
a former contractor myself, I don't see what the big deal is. Here in
California I never got overtime pay as a contractor. Realize though, that
if I chose to work a full year, I can pull in between US$150k-200k a year
on a W-2. While I think the cutoff point should be higher in this
particular case (say, $40/hr) this would create a condition where you could
make more money earning a theoretically smaller wage. I actually
disapprove of overtime pay in principle.
Why does a person's labor become suddenly more valuable after 40hrs/week?
As far as I can tell, it doesn't and therefore should not receive
compensation above the usual. If at some point you feel that your work is
not being fairly compensated, you can complain, stop working, or quit.
Making unusual compensation compulsory after a certain number of hours is
unwarranted interference.
-James Rogers
jamesr@best.com
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