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California gave Software Engineers a .50 raise before they are considered exempt

7 points by jlindsay ↗ HN
California gave Silicon Valley Software Engineers a $.50 raise for the minimum wage before they no longer qualify for over time, effective 01/1/2017. ie exempt status. From $41.85 to $42.35. =(

Here's the big question, why should Software Engineers not be entitled to overtime? Just say'n

http://wp.me/p4L0IT-2dN

7 comments

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kspaans
FWIW, in most (maybe all, I haven't checked) parts of Canada the labour laws are the same: https://www.labour.gov.on.ca/english/es/tools/srt/coverage_g...

Part of the reason you aren't entitled to overtime is because you're paid a salary, not a wage. Do you clock-in & clock-out at work to track your hours?

chrisbennet
Try working less than 40 hours some places and you will find that "you're a professional, work what you need to" only goes one way. Just because I'm salaried doesn't mean my employer is "entighted" to free hours after 40. It's a 2 way street.
bsvalley
If you follow your logic then, managers, directors and CEO's should be entitled to overtime as well...
flukus
Looking at CEO salaries, they're already more than well compensated for overtime.
bsvalley
For an experienced SWE in San Francisco Bay Area we're looking at a $200K total comp... including base salary, stocks and most importantly, annual bonus (which includes overtime). If you put a lot of effort then you get a big annual bonus.
dragonwriter
> Here's the big question, why should Software Engineers not be entitled to overtime?

Like all wage and hour protections, overtime is a protection for vulnerable employees against abusive situations. At the $80K+ annual salary equivalent at which computer professions lose overtime entitlement in CA, that's not particularly an issue.

It's a balance between freedom to contract and protection against abusive norms being established that render that freedom illusory.

throwaway420
> Like all wage and hour protections, overtime is a protection for vulnerable employees against abusive situations.

Like all wage and hour protections, overtime is ostensibly a protection for vulnerable employees against abusive situations.

In theory, there's a good outcome in that workers are simply paid more for working lots of hours beyond the cultural norm.

In practice, what happens is that companies are incentivized to make peoples' lives difficult with scheduling and limit them to 32 or 36 hours or whatever instead of having them work over 40 hours. This forces anybody who wants to make more money to deal with big scheduling, extra travel costs, and other headaches involved in working multiple jobs.

Or they increase wages beyond whatever arbitrary cutoff point exists to qualify for overtime protections and then have carte blanche to pressure them into working lots more hours.

These protections actually end up screwing the least well off and poorest people the most. I'm not saying it's all bad, but there are always unintended consequences with economic edicts.