LinkedIn Busted In Wage Theft Investigation

fiannaFailMan (702447) writes that LinkedIn was just fined for the all too common practice of requiring workers to work off the clock Following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, LinkedIn has agreed to pay over $3 million in overtime back wages and $2.5 million in liquidated damages to 359 former and current employees working at company branches in four states. The Fair Labor Standards Act requires companies to have record-keeping systems in place to record overtime hours worked and to ensure that employees are paid for those hours, requirements that the company was not meeting.

Re:Go figure.

[Anonymous Coward]

This is what happens in a lot of government agencies. It's a one-two punch from a public that treats all government employees as lazy pieces of shit and entrenched management that are lazy pieces of shit. When the line level employee is faced with this atmosphere, and the ongoing political attacks on their compensation, there's no reason to stay. All but the most ideologically dedicated with real skills and qualifications eventually leave their government job for one with better pay and less political heat. What's left is the few who really do the work, and the many lazy pieces of shit who would never get a job anywhere else. Making the atmosphere for government workers even more toxic is not going to attract better workers. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Salaried Employees Get This All The Time

[James-NSC]

Some companies skirt this rule simply by paying "hourly" employees a salary above $23,600 (per FLSA [flsa.com]) then work them 80+ hours a week and call it good. More and more employees, regardless of actual job duties are being paid a salary so they are then "exempt" from any overtime pay, even those that would traditionally qualify under the FLSA & I see this more and more often in the IT sector. If you look at the Computer Employee Exemption [dol.gov] - you can make pretty much any IT job [flsa.com] fit the bill if you phrase it correctly.

Workers are left with little recourse because:

• They've been exempt at every job they've ever had, so they no know different
• Many - even some of the learned ones - do not know how the FLSA applies to them in this situation
• Everyone around them is expected to work overtime w/out compensation, so it's not unusual.
• Regardless of what job duties they will be doing up to and, frankly, especially those including "non-exempt" duties they are told by management that they are doing "exempt" duties
• They have little real recourse, even if they know they are "non-exempt", unless other co-workers join them in a complaint. Co-workers who are unlikely to do so as:
  • There is little perceived gain and significant risk
  • It is expensive to the point of being cost-prohibitive in order to make a successful claim
  • Any employee who were to be successful would likely find repercussions pertaining to employ-ability later down the road. While not legal to do so above the board, it happens nevertheless (just look at all the wage-fixing [boingboing.net] and collusion [reuters.com] in the valley - you actually think they'll hire someone again, or promote them over a co-worker who didn't sue?)

At the end of the day, LinkedIn is far from an anomaly, it is standard business practice - unless there is a top to bottom review by some third party (I don't know if there is even an entity that would be suited for this sort of endeavor), this practice will continue unabated. We will work more and continue to be paid less than what we earn.

Re:Need to hire more H1b's

[praxis]

H1b's just do the OT with out makeing a big deal and if they quit or get fired they have to go home if they cannot find a new job and complete the transfer within 30 days after being fired (which is very likely to be the case).

You are correct about not rocking the boat, but I corrected the sentence for you.

The poster you "corrected" appears to be more correct than your correction. According to Klasko (I tried for ten minutes to find the relevant document on dhs.gov), there is no 30-day period. The visa status ends immediately and the employer must arrange travel back to the country of origin. In practice, a new H1-B petition *might* be approved by the government but it appears there is no grace period, it is at the whims of the petition reviewer.

If an employer terminates an H1-B employee before the end of that employee’s period of authorized stay, the employer is liable for the “reasonable costs” of return transportation for the employee to his or her last country of residence.

Contrary to popular belief, there is no “10-day,” “30-day” or other grace period for terminated employees holding H-1B status. Once the employment relationship terminates, the H-1B employee is out of status. While USCIS has proposed a 60-day period within which an H-1B worker may seek new employment, that period remains only a proposal.

From: http://www.klaskolaw.com/artic... [klaskolaw.com]