overtime is not defined but..

[murtix]

Dear all,

i have been working in a company for 7 years now, and i was never paid for any overtime i made for the company. it was defined full time salary, but i have worked overtime a lot of times. our company has never asked us to return a time sheet.

I have looked in my agreement, it does not explained or even mentioned the overtime word in anywhere of the agreement. I have proofs and witnesses about how many times i had to work overtime. Can I claim those hours to be paid to me ?

Also, even though in the agreement it says i am entitled health insurance and other benefits, i have been told that, our company has been canceled our health insurances. I asked the boss that you should pay us extra so at least we can get out own, he says he doesnt have to do it.


One other things, I havent asked for any vacation time off for last 5 years. There is a section that basically says, if u dont use it, you loose it. Is there a legal way of overriding that sentence ?

And also, i have been promised verbally about a lot of extrra payments for the boss asked me to do, but never been paid. Do i have a chance to make him pay those, or should i just forget about those ?

I am sure you guys will think i did a lot stupid mistakes, but this was my first job experience and i am upset at myself by letting employer taking advantage of me.

Thank you for any of your advices.

 

[ShyCat]

U.S. law only.

 

[pattytx]

ShyCat's point being, what U.S. state do you work in?
There's a reason you are requested to provide it.

 

[murtix]

State is Virginia.

I was talking to a friend of mine, he said that, if it is not defined (about the overtime subject) i should be able to claim for those.

 

[ecmst12]

Sounds like you are exempt. What are your job duties? Not every worker is entitled to overtime compensation.

 

[pattytx]

Regarding insurance, your employer is correct, there is no law requiring him to pay you more just because insurance benefits are no longer offered.

What "agreement"? Is this a bona fide contract? Only an attorney who has reviewed it can tell you that.

Regarding vacation, Virginia law doesn't prohibit use-it-or-lose-it policies. Guess you should have taken it.

Verbal promises are generally worth the paper they are written on.

 

[murtix]

the company i work for is an information technology company. when i started the job 7 years ago, there are 7 technical people as i am, and we were sharing the job. everybody had a schedule and times that we are coming and going was certain to the office.

that in 2004, they have dropped it to (first 3 then 2 people) and told us to work from home, they asked me to move in an area that very close to the datacenter (they were gonna pay half of the lease that i had to put my name on), in case customers requires local access to their computers i will be 5 minutes away from the datacenter and help them whatever they need as long as they needed. the other technical person was living far away (i say 20 miles) and he was only working from home in the day time. he would help in the night time.

So basically since 2004, i was working 24x7 on call, from home that is 5 minues away from the datacenter. In case i need to go someplace far, the other guy needs to cover for me, but they were always bitching about it. so even though i was away, i still need to work remotely in case they need help.

also, in june 2007, they fired the other person, so i was left alone taking care of all the job (i even had to deal with the sales and help to the new accounting people they have hired). Now, they are just hiring a new person to help me, but, he will need a lot of mentoring.

in all this time, they have never changed our employment contracts. So i did all the work with the same benefits when i was working for only 40 certain hours of a week.

So this is the all story. I wanna quit from this company, but i also wanna take what is mine (if there is any).

What do u guys think ?

 

[ecmst12]

I think you didn't answer my question.

 

[pattytx]

I think you didn't answer my question.

I was gonna say that.

 

[murtix]

Sorry for my late reply, here is the job definition:

2. Duties:

Employee, subject to the direction of Employer, will be responsible for those duties indicated in Schedule A, and such other duties as Employer may assign to him from time to time. Employer will have the authority to determine the means and manner by which those duties may be performed.

All work, performed by employee will be subject to review by employer. All fees generated by employee's services will belong to employer. Employee will devote his full time and attention to, and work exclusively for, employer. Employee will comply with all policies, standards, and regulations of employer now ir subsequently in effect.

After that there is compensation, it does not mention anything about overtime at all.

 

[pattytx]

That was not the question.

WHAT DO YOU DO? (shouting implied)

 

[ecmst12]

What are the duties in Schedule A? In order for anyone to attempt to figure out whether you are exempt or non-exempt, we need to know exactly what you spend the majority of your workday doing. Knowing your job title wouldn't hurt either.

 

[murtix]

Sorry for the confusion. I work in IT company as Technical Support. My title in the agreement is "Unix System Administrator". After they fired the guy in June 2008, they told me i will do his job too and told me to use Director of operations. But they did not increase my salary, besides I had to work 24x7 to do his job and mine, because i was the only technical person left in the company.

BTW, I never seen that schedule A. I dont know what it refers to.

 

[murtix]

BTW, after they told me to be responsible for all the work in the company, they did not offer me a new agreement based on new responsiblilties. So, I continue working even harder and more busy with the original agreement that was signed years ago.

Any comments or advices ?

 

[ecmst12]

I give up. Go read:
Computer Workers and FLSA -- The Online Wages, Hours and Overtime Pay Resource

You can figure out for yourself if you should be exempt.