Minimum wage with additional unpaid hours

[bazzy]

So i was thinking about this. Looking at seek i noticed there are some companies offering work for minimum wage. 38 hour week being paid salary of 42k, according to the fair works website that is minimum wage. so my question is, with these companies, (There was a brief period where i was working at a company like this before i found a job that paid properly, so lets use that company as an example) they would put people on an oncall roster. as it states in the contract "on call duties will be performed based on a roster system, time worked will be accumulated as TOIL"
however it was rare that worked up TOIL would be permitted and there where no records kept officially to keep track of them. additionally they would often have instances where they would "request working reasonable additional hours"

in that role i found myself working up to an hour extra every day plus whatever oncall hours i had. so lets say that works out to be 6 hours a week average.

So my question is with this, these "reasonable additional hours" and unused toil that you loose at the end of the month. these would constitute working 44 hours a week at 42k that works out to $18.35 an hour. the more hours your expected to put in unpaid further erodes that hourly rate. why is this acceptable much less expected?

[enf]

TOIL...el f*cko that!

I spent a lifetime in IT working shift work and managing shift workers. I would never allow TOIL.

1. You never get it.
2. If you do, you never get ALL of it.
3. You never get it.

Basic rule is get paid for your work. Rates are a different issue, and a different discussion.

If anyone I know was offered it, I advised against. Although I should say that in my day 70s, 80s, 90s there was plenty of work so conditions were almost always reasonable and they didn't have anyone over a barrel. Times are diffrent now so maybe I'm out of touch.

TOIL...the acronym says it all.

[peteramjet]

[QUOTE=bazzy;869135 the more hours your expected to put in unpaid further erodes that hourly rate. why is this acceptable much less expected?[/QUOTE]

Like everything in life it is only acceptable if you agree to it. I personally wouldn’t, so personally don’t find it acceptable.

If TOIL is stipulated in your contract and you are asked to work additional hours, then I would make damn sure those hours are accumulated and provided. Granted, it’s not always easy, but it needs to be done.

TOIL...el f*cko that!

Depends on the rates.

A job I had years back had OT had 1.5hrs for the first 3 hours (then 2hrs/hr), while TOIL was 2.5 hrs for the first 3 hours (then 3hrs/hr). It was far more beneficial for me to work an hour TOIL each Mon to Thu and then get the Fri off, plus have some hours spare, then to be paid an additional 6 hours pay.

[enf]

Like everything in life it is only acceptable if you agree to it. I personally wouldn’t, so personally don’t find it acceptable.

If TOIL is stipulated in your contract and you are asked to work additional hours, then I would make damn sure those hours are accumulated and provided. Granted, it’s not always easy, but it needs to be done.




Depends on the rates.

A job I had years back had OT had 1.5hrs for the first 3 hours (then 2hrs/hr), while TOIL was 2.5 hrs for the first 3 hours (then 3hrs/hr). It was far more beneficial for me to work an hour TOIL each Mon to Thu and then get the Fri off, plus have some hours spare, then to be paid an additional 6 hours pay.

I accept that. In my experience it was NEVER delivered as promised, so that's all I can base it on. And, as I said, it was in a different world.

[bazzy]

The problem is at the time when i was working in that type of environment it seems to be common place in MSP environments particularly small ones where they are under staffed for the work load and therefor don't have the "bandwidth" as they put it to take the time off. the last MSP i worked for it was not uncommon for me to be doing a 40 hour week then being "asked" to do week end patching on "toil" then not being able to take the time. it got to the point where i was being "asked" to do patching 3 week ends per month basically 1 customer environment per week end, taking up most of the week end meaning i was unable to really have a life outside work.

When i eventually did end up saying no I really can't do it one week end as i had made other arrangements (was someones birthday by memory) and the boss basically said "well unmake them you need to do patching we have no one else." my response was I am not willing to cancel my plans sorry and the boss said "well if your not going to then feel free to find work somewhere else." under my breath i said ok. 2 weeks later i handed in my resignation to start work at my current employer. my Boss at the time said "I thought you where happy in your role why didn't you come to me with the issues" and i said "I did. you told me to find another job, so i did. goodbye"

They couldn't find a replacement engineer with the skillset i had for about 6 months and where calling me up asking questions in that time. I had to say i was going to start billing them if they keep calling me to get them to stop.

anyway when i left that company they owed me nearly a month worth of toil and i never got paid for it. they also tried to screw me out of the 8 weeks of leave i had built up.

[bob_m_54]

This happened at Boeing Australia in 2005. Basically, at the time, everyone was earning wages at a set hourly rate, with any overtime paid as it should be. And at the time, there wasn't a lot of overtime required. The company offered roughly $3,000 extra per year, if the workers signed a new contract, where they went onto a salary. Most of the workers decided to take the new offer, arguing that we weren't doing any overtime anyway. But the new contract had a clause that read something like "From time to time, a certain amount of extra effort may be required".

The company wouldn't be pinned down on what this "extra effort" may entail, and basically said it would depend on what your team leader decided at the time. A quick survey of the 8? team leaders at the time varied from "maybe a couple of hours a week" to "No more than 10 hours per week", to "No Idea"

Myself and a couple of other blokes thought hang on, you can you can earn the extra by doing less than 1.1 hours overtime per week anyway, which wasn't out of the realms of possibility. And this "extra effort" clause seemed more than just a tad dodgy. So we stayed on wages. We copped shit from the blokes on salary, telling us we were crazy etc...

I never used to do much overtime anyway, because I didn't need the extra cash and valued my own time more. And needless to say, us on wages were very rarely offered overtime anyway, it wasn't in the companies interest. But after a couple of months the company acquired a new contract, where the "extra effort" started to become the norm, and most guys were working up to 10 extra hours per week, for bugger all. They weren't happy.

On one of the rare occasions where our workload was enormous, I was required to work overtime, and I did an extra 30 odd hours for the fortnight. Unfortunately I happen to drop my payslip on the hangar floor, and some kind soul pinned it to the noticeboard, so I would find it there (another clause of our contracts was that our earnings were confidential, between us and the company only), were it stayed till I "found" it there at knockoff time.

The next morning I got called into HR and got a reefing for divulging my earnings to the rest of the workers. I explained how it must have happened and that I was completely blameless hahaha.. Apparently they had a stream of guys going up and complaining that they were being ripped off, and that it wasn't fair I earned an extra $1,700 odd for the fortnight...

[enf]

People often bite at the first change they get offered without considering the consequences. I always operated on the basis that they were'nt doing me any favours and that turned out to be the case most of the time.

Big organisations often operate on what we called the "good guy syndrome". "He's a good guy. If we ask nicely he'll probably do the work whether we pay him or not." Then it becomes expected.

[shred]

"He's a good guy. If we ask nicely he'll probably do the work whether we pay him or not." Then it becomes expected.

Not just big organisations. My first proper job was working for a small business that had a retail shop associated with it. Our paid hours were 9:00 - 5:06pm, but the shop was expected to be open from 9:00 - 5:30. It wasn't considered "fair" to make the sales people in the shop work longer hours than those of us working behind the scenes, so it was decided that everyone would work 9:00 - 5:30 and would take a day off each month in return for the extra time worked each day.

I think I managed to be allowed to actually take my day off at the end of the first month. After that, there was an endless stream of excuses, but basically nobody ever got to take their day off - we all just worked longer days for nothing. Never again.

[mtv]

The bottom line....

If you don't like the conditions offered, don't take the job.

Unless of course you are desperate for the money.

[enf]

The bottom line....

If you don't like the conditions offered, don't take the job.

Unless of course you are desperate for the money.

True...but times are harder now as the cost of living is skyrocketing. Jobs are harder to find as we automate and outsource ourselves down the tube...

Young people have no chance...