I'm an intern, paid hourly . . . and I still don't get time and a half, even though I should based on either the old rules or the new rules. The new rules are just designed so class action suits can't be filed against companies like wal-mart, McDonalds, etc. They do nothing to change the position of interns.
Rule 1: Almost all employees who make less than $455 a week ($23,660 a year) are eligible for overtime. The old rule set overtime for anyone who made less than $250 a week. The new rule applies whether the employee is blue collar or white collar, or whether they supervise people of not. The exception for this rule is teachers, doctors and lawyers. They do not get overtime, no matter what they are paid.
Now the bad news:
Rule 2: Any employee who earns more than $100,000 a year is ineligible for mandated overtime, period.
Rule 3: Any employee who earns between $23,660 and $100,000 a year, and who is in most executive, professional, or administrative positions, is not eligible for overtime. This does not, however, apply to salespeople. They are still eligible.
Rule 4: Managers are not entitled to overtime if they oversee two or more people and have the authority to hire, fire, or recommend that someone be hired or fired.
Rule 5: Administrative employees who have decision-making power and run some sort of operation are not eligible.
Rule 6: Employees whose job requires imagination, invention, originality, or artistic or creative endeavors are not eligible for overtime.
Rule 7: Employees whose main duties are computer-related and involve the implementation, analysis, development, or application of computer systems or designs are also not eligible for overtime.
Rule 8: Sales staff that regularly work outside of the employer's place of business are, you guessed it, not eligible either.
ARCHITECTS DON'T GET OVERTIME BECAUSE YOUR ARE A PROFESSIONAL!!!!
THIS WAS THE CROCK OF SHIT I HEARD AT ONE FIRM I INTERVIEWED WITH. YEARS LATER, ALL THE ARCHITECTS
TOOK HIM TO COURT. HE'S NOW OUT OF BUSINESS,,GOOD.
I GUESS WE DON'T DESERVE HEALTH INSURANCE TOO.
When interns have reported architecture firms to the Department of Labor what usually has happened is that, after an investigation, the DOL has ruled that the firm must pay overtime to the following:
1. Students
2. Interns with professional degrees who graduated less than one year ago
3. Employees without professional degrees who are not in positions of authority or who do not work independently (i.e. entry-level CAD techs must get overtime, but IT managers or "Senior CAD monkeys" don't have to get overtime.)
The DOL has almost always ruled that anyone with a professional degree and at least one year of professional experience can be classified as an exempt professional. I know that this does not meet the exact wording of the new or old rules - but in practice this is the way the law has repeatedly been implemented in architecture firms.
After such an investigation of a firm in which I worked the firm was ordered to pay overtime retroactively for several years back to those in my above categories. The employee who called for the investigation did not receive anything because she did not fall into any of those categories, and she was fired soon afterward based on supposedly unrelated issues.
I wonder how those interns that work for free for those star architects are gonna be classified? Would it be illegal for an employer to hire someone in an intern possition and not even pay minimum wage for their services rendered?
I was listening to NPR this morning and they said there were stipulations for people in creative professions. That could be architects depending on the way it is interperted.
If it makes anyone feel better, Europeans on Average work 300 hours less per year than do Americans. They also get 6-weeks paid vacation and 2-weeks of paid holidays.....
if a firm does not pay you overtime they are scamming you all the way to the bank - which of course what the white house wanted when they changed these rules. help business and screw the middle-class.
a well managed firms overhead, or nut, is paid by a 40 hour week. so every hour you work over that is gravy. if they aren't sharing the gravy, you need to go someplace where they do.
Do you have any Idea how much money your 401K manager makes? Ask him - it's about 150k skimmed off the top of the group fund annually.
Fund performance numbers are after they get thier cut...everyone's making money but the architects.....imagine how thankless your job is already, then you build your 401K only to find out your carrying another person. Ouch
My knowledge of the new rules is vauge. The complaint I've heard is that it's going to cut down on people who basically are living off their overtime pay. While overtime pay is nice I don't think anyone should be depending on it. ArchAngel makes a good point about how much Americans work. We work longer hours than anyone else in the world and only Japan comes close. Then again, lets look at what the number one and two economies in the world are. Architects have generally never been non-exempt which was clearly defined in an above post. If you want to whine about how someone already making over $100k isn't going to get his OT anymore, fine. But from what I've gathered the janitor making $12/hr is still going to get 1.5 hrs for anything over 40.
If firms paid for every hour someone sat at their desk, it would be a managment nightmare. Some people work their butts off and get tons done in an 8 hour day. Others wander around, talk to their girlfriend on the phone, take 7 coffee breaks and are just plain slow- they need 12 hours to get done what a normal person gets done in 8. Would you rather have the ability to set your own work hours, have flexibility, be able to spend time on line at archinect, etc, or have someone watching over you minute by minute making sure that all of those hours on your time sheet were productive?
bush-wacked again. you are right bloodclot. if you are working for a fair employer, until the point you that you can control and influence the mount of time you spend on a project, you should be paid ot, no matter, govenment law or not. this may be the first day out of school, it may never happen in the case of some firms. if your boss, regularly commits to rediculous deadlines and knows that every hour you work beyond the base salary is his pure profit..... thats bad management ....architects should revolt against. peta should take it up as it has to do with ethical treatment of animals.
bush's 8 step program in addition that only 60% of all corp paid any corporate income tax last year should is more the reason we should send this a-hole back to the ranch.
archie i think you are damn right....i for myself am a sort of person who hangs out in the office for 9-10 hours every day, but if i crack a whip on myslef, i could get the same amount of work done in 7 hours...though sometimes i will work for 10 hours and get 12 hours worth work done...
ive realized working at my current place that hourly rates and overtime rates tend to screw up the managment-designer relationships, and hence at my place we've optimized the hourly rate for 40 hours/week..most times i end up working 60-70, but im not cribbing
"bush's 8 step program in addition that only 60% of all corp paid any corporate income tax last year should is more the reason we should send this a-hole back to the ranch."
TED, we all know your bias against President Bush but again you are showing ignorance in stating something that is baseless. American corporations pay more in federal taxes than most countries around the world. In fact corporate tax rates in the USA much more than western European countries where they put the major tax burden on their people and little on corporations.
Even John Kerry has supported cuts in the corporate tax rates. His logic is that it will end outsourcing of jobs. I question that and most economists do as well.
See: http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=225
"According to the Institute for International Economics, the effective rate for US corporations was just over 30% in 2002, while mainland China's effective corporate rate was only 11.3%, Britain's 18.2%, Mexico's 15.1% and Indonesia's a miniscule 0.2%.
Furthermore, the US also attempts to tax money that US-based companies earn in other countries, but only after those profits are brought back to the US. That means profits that remain overseas, perhaps invested in new factories in low-tax countries, never get taxed at the higher US rates. And that's been true through both Democratic and Republican administrations."
It is pointless to compare corporate tax rates in countries outside the United States without looking at the individual tax rates in those same countries. Are you advocating that we increase individual tax rates and institute a VAT to reach the same (high) ratio of GDP to tax revenue? Probably not.
The real question is the ratio of taxes paid to services received, and occupying the point between which taxes stifle growth and where poor investment in education, social services, healthcare and infrastructure means a less robust economy and lower standard of living. This is the point that we are at now, where it is costing us more to not pay for services received from the government than it would to have them deducted from our paycheck each month.
But that's all beside the point, because my understanding of the new overtime rules is that individuals working in fields that typically require professional degress are exempt, because, um... we make too much money anyway? You can read the Department of Labor's synopsis of the new "Learned Professional" exemption here: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17d_professional.htm
Basically I think things are unchanged for architects - the old "1 year of experience" measure will probably determine who exercise discretion and who is just picking up redlines and eligible for overtime.
seriously I love how everyone gets all dismissive about politics and the state of goverment when this shit happens. Its because coporate propganda (and im really not that much of a hippie) has trained us to believe that we cant do anything about it. The truth is that we need a constitutional ammendment limiting all donation to political parties to individuals and that there is a persrcibed ca per person per year with no exceptions at all. This bullshit that money is speech will (and I really dont think Im overstating) decimate our society. If corporations need to lobby governement then they have to d oit through the voters. I absolutly think that it would be revolutionary and we wouldnt see this kinda horseshit. I recognize the roles of multinationals, but do not think that we are indepted to them. Hey if anyone knows anyone thats proposing this ammendment let me know, ive looked for it in the past
A,
Thanks for the articles and reference. i do bash bush constantly and i am sorry. but i feel strongly against him.
giving tax cuts to anyone is a good thing if it has a goal in mind to increase economic investment and keep jobs in the us; a goal of the kerry plan.
i dont disagree with giving tax cuts to the highest bracket if it isnt just a tax cut, if its a 'we give you this / you do this' tax cuts that requires something that has much more longevity and value to the country. the premise of the bush tax cut is that people will naturally reinvest that money. why it goes far to a point of making optimism in the economic sector, it hasnt added real jobs to the country. this is a very difficult thing to crack, agree. but someone has to tackle it.
in illinois, the governer has put in place a law in april where for the most part protecting overtime independent of the federal law. Illinois to block impact of much of overtime law my suggestion if you are presently getting ot, check your state laws also if your boss man says 'sorry i am being forced to stop your ot'
here, the rule for architects is not just a one year thing, it has to do with ability to supervise and control your own time/work flow. if you are licensed you are 'exempt' from overtime. but within a practice, [and ill speak from the corp side here] your grade will determine you overtime provision and if you are a 'profesional'. at som for example arch c's get overtime[1-3 years experience generally]. people actually turn down promotions because they make much more money at that rank. management always has decisions in staffing and sometime they choose to work the team to death [with no impact on fee for the salaried staff]. verses adding folks to the project. reasonable firms shouldnt abuse their staff at any level.
all of the big firms in chi town have tried to stop paying young staff ot -- all have been taken to court with the result of retroactive pay and paying ot. many small practices slip by, but they are just buying time.
Aug 27, 04 11:50 am ·
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New Overtime Rules
How do Bush's new OT pay rules affect architects vs. intern architects?
I'm an intern, paid hourly . . . and I still don't get time and a half, even though I should based on either the old rules or the new rules. The new rules are just designed so class action suits can't be filed against companies like wal-mart, McDonalds, etc. They do nothing to change the position of interns.
from USAT:
Rule 1: Almost all employees who make less than $455 a week ($23,660 a year) are eligible for overtime. The old rule set overtime for anyone who made less than $250 a week. The new rule applies whether the employee is blue collar or white collar, or whether they supervise people of not. The exception for this rule is teachers, doctors and lawyers. They do not get overtime, no matter what they are paid.
Now the bad news:
Rule 2: Any employee who earns more than $100,000 a year is ineligible for mandated overtime, period.
Rule 3: Any employee who earns between $23,660 and $100,000 a year, and who is in most executive, professional, or administrative positions, is not eligible for overtime. This does not, however, apply to salespeople. They are still eligible.
Rule 4: Managers are not entitled to overtime if they oversee two or more people and have the authority to hire, fire, or recommend that someone be hired or fired.
Rule 5: Administrative employees who have decision-making power and run some sort of operation are not eligible.
Rule 6: Employees whose job requires imagination, invention, originality, or artistic or creative endeavors are not eligible for overtime.
Rule 7: Employees whose main duties are computer-related and involve the implementation, analysis, development, or application of computer systems or designs are also not eligible for overtime.
Rule 8: Sales staff that regularly work outside of the employer's place of business are, you guessed it, not eligible either.
ARCHITECTS DON'T GET OVERTIME BECAUSE YOUR ARE A PROFESSIONAL!!!!
THIS WAS THE CROCK OF SHIT I HEARD AT ONE FIRM I INTERVIEWED WITH. YEARS LATER, ALL THE ARCHITECTS
TOOK HIM TO COURT. HE'S NOW OUT OF BUSINESS,,GOOD.
I GUESS WE DON'T DESERVE HEALTH INSURANCE TOO.
When interns have reported architecture firms to the Department of Labor what usually has happened is that, after an investigation, the DOL has ruled that the firm must pay overtime to the following:
1. Students
2. Interns with professional degrees who graduated less than one year ago
3. Employees without professional degrees who are not in positions of authority or who do not work independently (i.e. entry-level CAD techs must get overtime, but IT managers or "Senior CAD monkeys" don't have to get overtime.)
The DOL has almost always ruled that anyone with a professional degree and at least one year of professional experience can be classified as an exempt professional. I know that this does not meet the exact wording of the new or old rules - but in practice this is the way the law has repeatedly been implemented in architecture firms.
After such an investigation of a firm in which I worked the firm was ordered to pay overtime retroactively for several years back to those in my above categories. The employee who called for the investigation did not receive anything because she did not fall into any of those categories, and she was fired soon afterward based on supposedly unrelated issues.
I wonder how those interns that work for free for those star architects are gonna be classified? Would it be illegal for an employer to hire someone in an intern possition and not even pay minimum wage for their services rendered?
I was listening to NPR this morning and they said there were stipulations for people in creative professions. That could be architects depending on the way it is interperted.
If it makes anyone feel better, Europeans on Average work 300 hours less per year than do Americans. They also get 6-weeks paid vacation and 2-weeks of paid holidays.....
if a firm does not pay you overtime they are scamming you all the way to the bank - which of course what the white house wanted when they changed these rules. help business and screw the middle-class.
a well managed firms overhead, or nut, is paid by a 40 hour week. so every hour you work over that is gravy. if they aren't sharing the gravy, you need to go someplace where they do.
Do you have any Idea how much money your 401K manager makes? Ask him - it's about 150k skimmed off the top of the group fund annually.
Fund performance numbers are after they get thier cut...everyone's making money but the architects.....imagine how thankless your job is already, then you build your 401K only to find out your carrying another person. Ouch
My knowledge of the new rules is vauge. The complaint I've heard is that it's going to cut down on people who basically are living off their overtime pay. While overtime pay is nice I don't think anyone should be depending on it. ArchAngel makes a good point about how much Americans work. We work longer hours than anyone else in the world and only Japan comes close. Then again, lets look at what the number one and two economies in the world are. Architects have generally never been non-exempt which was clearly defined in an above post. If you want to whine about how someone already making over $100k isn't going to get his OT anymore, fine. But from what I've gathered the janitor making $12/hr is still going to get 1.5 hrs for anything over 40.
RULE 6 AND 7 IS BULLSHIT
If firms paid for every hour someone sat at their desk, it would be a managment nightmare. Some people work their butts off and get tons done in an 8 hour day. Others wander around, talk to their girlfriend on the phone, take 7 coffee breaks and are just plain slow- they need 12 hours to get done what a normal person gets done in 8. Would you rather have the ability to set your own work hours, have flexibility, be able to spend time on line at archinect, etc, or have someone watching over you minute by minute making sure that all of those hours on your time sheet were productive?
bush-wacked again. you are right bloodclot. if you are working for a fair employer, until the point you that you can control and influence the mount of time you spend on a project, you should be paid ot, no matter, govenment law or not. this may be the first day out of school, it may never happen in the case of some firms. if your boss, regularly commits to rediculous deadlines and knows that every hour you work beyond the base salary is his pure profit..... thats bad management ....architects should revolt against. peta should take it up as it has to do with ethical treatment of animals.
bush's 8 step program in addition that only 60% of all corp paid any corporate income tax last year should is more the reason we should send this a-hole back to the ranch.
archie i think you are damn right....i for myself am a sort of person who hangs out in the office for 9-10 hours every day, but if i crack a whip on myslef, i could get the same amount of work done in 7 hours...though sometimes i will work for 10 hours and get 12 hours worth work done...
ive realized working at my current place that hourly rates and overtime rates tend to screw up the managment-designer relationships, and hence at my place we've optimized the hourly rate for 40 hours/week..most times i end up working 60-70, but im not cribbing
"bush's 8 step program in addition that only 60% of all corp paid any corporate income tax last year should is more the reason we should send this a-hole back to the ranch."
TED, we all know your bias against President Bush but again you are showing ignorance in stating something that is baseless. American corporations pay more in federal taxes than most countries around the world. In fact corporate tax rates in the USA much more than western European countries where they put the major tax burden on their people and little on corporations.
Even John Kerry has supported cuts in the corporate tax rates. His logic is that it will end outsourcing of jobs. I question that and most economists do as well.
See: http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=225
"According to the Institute for International Economics, the effective rate for US corporations was just over 30% in 2002, while mainland China's effective corporate rate was only 11.3%, Britain's 18.2%, Mexico's 15.1% and Indonesia's a miniscule 0.2%.
Furthermore, the US also attempts to tax money that US-based companies earn in other countries, but only after those profits are brought back to the US. That means profits that remain overseas, perhaps invested in new factories in low-tax countries, never get taxed at the higher US rates. And that's been true through both Democratic and Republican administrations."
Here's a news article about Kerry's plan:
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/26/news/economy/election_kerry_corporatetaxes/
It is pointless to compare corporate tax rates in countries outside the United States without looking at the individual tax rates in those same countries. Are you advocating that we increase individual tax rates and institute a VAT to reach the same (high) ratio of GDP to tax revenue? Probably not.
The real question is the ratio of taxes paid to services received, and occupying the point between which taxes stifle growth and where poor investment in education, social services, healthcare and infrastructure means a less robust economy and lower standard of living. This is the point that we are at now, where it is costing us more to not pay for services received from the government than it would to have them deducted from our paycheck each month.
But that's all beside the point, because my understanding of the new overtime rules is that individuals working in fields that typically require professional degress are exempt, because, um... we make too much money anyway? You can read the Department of Labor's synopsis of the new "Learned Professional" exemption here:
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17d_professional.htm
Basically I think things are unchanged for architects - the old "1 year of experience" measure will probably determine who exercise discretion and who is just picking up redlines and eligible for overtime.
seriously I love how everyone gets all dismissive about politics and the state of goverment when this shit happens. Its because coporate propganda (and im really not that much of a hippie) has trained us to believe that we cant do anything about it. The truth is that we need a constitutional ammendment limiting all donation to political parties to individuals and that there is a persrcibed ca per person per year with no exceptions at all. This bullshit that money is speech will (and I really dont think Im overstating) decimate our society. If corporations need to lobby governement then they have to d oit through the voters. I absolutly think that it would be revolutionary and we wouldnt see this kinda horseshit. I recognize the roles of multinationals, but do not think that we are indepted to them. Hey if anyone knows anyone thats proposing this ammendment let me know, ive looked for it in the past
A,
Thanks for the articles and reference. i do bash bush constantly and i am sorry. but i feel strongly against him.
giving tax cuts to anyone is a good thing if it has a goal in mind to increase economic investment and keep jobs in the us; a goal of the kerry plan.
i dont disagree with giving tax cuts to the highest bracket if it isnt just a tax cut, if its a 'we give you this / you do this' tax cuts that requires something that has much more longevity and value to the country. the premise of the bush tax cut is that people will naturally reinvest that money. why it goes far to a point of making optimism in the economic sector, it hasnt added real jobs to the country. this is a very difficult thing to crack, agree. but someone has to tackle it.
in illinois, the governer has put in place a law in april where for the most part protecting overtime independent of the federal law. Illinois to block impact of much of overtime law my suggestion if you are presently getting ot, check your state laws also if your boss man says 'sorry i am being forced to stop your ot'
here, the rule for architects is not just a one year thing, it has to do with ability to supervise and control your own time/work flow. if you are licensed you are 'exempt' from overtime. but within a practice, [and ill speak from the corp side here] your grade will determine you overtime provision and if you are a 'profesional'. at som for example arch c's get overtime[1-3 years experience generally]. people actually turn down promotions because they make much more money at that rank. management always has decisions in staffing and sometime they choose to work the team to death [with no impact on fee for the salaried staff]. verses adding folks to the project. reasonable firms shouldnt abuse their staff at any level.
all of the big firms in chi town have tried to stop paying young staff ot -- all have been taken to court with the result of retroactive pay and paying ot. many small practices slip by, but they are just buying time.
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