overtime

What is the name of your state? ny
i've been reading the messages posted in the OT thread and i have a question. if a company forces you through verbal intimidation ( "we'll find someone else to do it, if you dont") to work UNPAID overtime is there any legal thing you can do? what if you quit because you are pressured to work 12 hours a day for over a year - not counting the two hours of commute time- can you sue for unemployment or are you S.O.O.L.? under the law who is qualified to receive OT pay? if you're salaried can you still get for OT pay? i worked a job for five years where i consistently worked 12 hours a day with out receiving any OT pay. i finally quit because when i put my foot down and said "this is not what i was told my job was going to be when i was hired,i'm not working anymore o.t." they responded "start looking for another job then" with the understanding that they were going to make the workplace intolerable- i saw them do it to others.
p.s: i was an excellent employee who consistently received exemplary performance appraisals and who was considered to be highly qualified with a proven record of success. i just physically/mentally couldn't work all those hours anymore

If you are non-exempt, you are entitled to overtime for every hour that you work over 40 in a week. It is legal for an employer to intimidate you into working overtime, force you into working overtime, threaten to fire you into working overtime; but it is not legal for them to not pay you for overtime.

If you are exempt then the company can work you 24/6 if they want to without paying you any extra compensation. (There are a few industry specific situations where that does not apply. In many states that would be 24/7 but you are in one of the states that requires one day off out of every seven.)

You are confusing salaried with exempt, which is a common mistake. All exempts are salaried; not all salarieds are exempt. If you are exempt you CAN be paid overtime if the employer wishes to do so, but there are NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER in which the employer is REQUIRED to do so. In exchange for this, an exempt employee must receive his full salary for any week in which he performed any work whatsoever, even if he did not work the full week. (There are a few exceptions to this, but they do not apply here.) If you are salaried but non-exempt, you still must be paid OT when applicable.

If you quit under the circumstances you describe it will be up to the state unemployment commission to determine whether or not you had "good cause" to quit. If they determine that you did not, you will not be entitled to unemployment.