legal question

legal questions

What is the name of your state? Missouri

Forgive me if this seems trivial or frivolous. I am not a lwayer.

I have heard the statement "in the abscence of a law prohibiting, a right is presumed."

To my knowledge, there is no law that creates a maximum number of hours that a person can work, only that, under the FSLA, anything over 40 hours per week is considered time and a half.

If an employer can require employees to work overtime in addition to an agreed upon schedule under this law, is there anything to prevent the employee from doing the same?
IE: can the employee voluntarily work more than the agreed upon schedule and expect to receive overtime compensation for it?

Regarding the "at will" employment situation. First of all, I'm curious to know more about this. Where is this concept legally defined? Second, if I work as an "at will" employee, I understand that I can be fired for no reason at any time. Based on this, would threats issued by management to compel me to abide by company policies or else risk continued employment be considered harassment or creating a hostile work environment? After all, they need no reason to terminate me, so why threaten me? Could such threats be considered "intentional infliction of emotional distress?"

Tim

1. If a non-exempt employee voluntarily works OT, the employer must pay for the time. If the employer objects to the ee working unauthorized OT, the employer may discipline or discharge the employee however. Management has full rights to schedule the hours of work, not the employees unless management authorizes employees to do so.

As a silly example, if you hired someone to mow your lawn and you agreed with the individual that that would take no more than 2 hours and you'd pay them $10.00/hour, would you be pleased if they knocked on your door late Saturday and said, "I decided to work 6 hours today. You owe me $60.00"? I rather doubt it. Dictating the terms of employment is YOUR right, not the kid mowing your lawn. If he doesn't like your terms, he can tell you to mow your lawn yourself.

2. The concept of "at will" employment comes from English common law. It is a doctrine that is recognized by 49 of the 50 states (Montana does not) and allows either party to sever the employment relationship at any time for any reason. (It's what allows your girlfriend to go to her employer and tell them "I'm outta here" if she gets fed up with their OT requirements.) If you do a simple internet search, I'm sure you can find reams of information on this.

An employer disciplining an employee for failure to follow company policy or warning an ee of the likelihood of that doesn't remotely constitute prohibited harassment or a hostile workplace. Would you rather be terminated by surprise? Or would you rather than tell you what the consequences are if you fail to follow policy? Now the manner in which this message is delivered certainly does vary by employer. Personally, I prefer rational and reasonable discourse between adults as opposed to managers acting like a bunch of jerks.

Prohibited harassment/hostile workplace only occurs when an ee or group of ee's are treated less favorably BECAUSE of a protected characteristic - age, race, religion, gender, national origin, etc. An unpleasant work environment is not a hostile work environment as defined in the law.

Lastly, not all States recognize a cause of action for IIED but for those that do, it is my understanding that there is a very high standard to meet that legal threshhold. Being a jerk, even a world class jerk, does not cut it, nor does what you describe.