IMO pay should be by the week not by the hour, set minimum wage at $1,062.50 a week for up to 32 hours of work, then another $2,656.25 for up to 64 hours of work, then $6,640.63 to an absolute maximum of allowed work in one week of 96 hours.
Makes hours the check against the employer instead of their check against the worker, caps the maximum allowed work in a single pay period, and most importantly I think, turns overtime into something that is more expensive to the employer than hiring an additional worker, putting a financial penalty in for riding your workers until they break instead of properly staffing for the work required.
You can still bring someone in for extra work if you absolutely need to get a crisis set aside, but it’s unfeasible to build your business strategy on just continuing to do that forever.
I like the concept but I don’t like the hours. Nobody should ever work 96 hours in one week. That’s either seven 13.7 hour days or six 16 hour days. Add morning routine, commute, meals, chores, errands, etc. Seven 12 hour workdays (84 hour week) should be the absolute maximum and it should be extremely costly to employers to ever get close to it. I say that as somebody who has done many 84 hour weeks in his life. It’s not fucking safe. Really anything past 50 hours gets really unsafe really quickly.
There should also be federal legislation that requires OT pay past a certain number of daily hours (preferably 8, but I’d accept 10) AND guarantee some amount of PTO for workers. The US is one of the only developed countries that has no minimum paid time off requirement for employers.
96 hours are plausible if you work on a remote site (e.g. oil rig) and are practically always on the clock. Just because it is insane from a normal person’s pov doesn’t mean it does not exist.
IMO pay should be by the week not by the hour, set minimum wage at $1,062.50 a week for up to 32 hours of work, then another $2,656.25 for up to 64 hours of work, then $6,640.63 to an absolute maximum of allowed work in one week of 96 hours.
Makes hours the check against the employer instead of their check against the worker, caps the maximum allowed work in a single pay period, and most importantly I think, turns overtime into something that is more expensive to the employer than hiring an additional worker, putting a financial penalty in for riding your workers until they break instead of properly staffing for the work required.
You can still bring someone in for extra work if you absolutely need to get a crisis set aside, but it’s unfeasible to build your business strategy on just continuing to do that forever.
I like the concept but I don’t like the hours. Nobody should ever work 96 hours in one week. That’s either seven 13.7 hour days or six 16 hour days. Add morning routine, commute, meals, chores, errands, etc. Seven 12 hour workdays (84 hour week) should be the absolute maximum and it should be extremely costly to employers to ever get close to it. I say that as somebody who has done many 84 hour weeks in his life. It’s not fucking safe. Really anything past 50 hours gets really unsafe really quickly.
There should also be federal legislation that requires OT pay past a certain number of daily hours (preferably 8, but I’d accept 10) AND guarantee some amount of PTO for workers. The US is one of the only developed countries that has no minimum paid time off requirement for employers.
96 hours are plausible if you work on a remote site (e.g. oil rig) and are practically always on the clock. Just because it is insane from a normal person’s pov doesn’t mean it does not exist.