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FMLA is considered a benefit because the employer is required to keep your job available to you during your leave. (As are disability benefits, even if those benefits are paid by the state. I learned that when I was on maternity leave and got paid by the state, not by my employer at a rate of $150 a week for the first 4 weeks!!!!!)
Overtime is a regulation required by law. The point is, the gov't has quite a lot of say so about hours and work conditions.
Nope!! I have precisely the same type of job I've always since college: exempt, and I now get no OT. Every other exempt job I've ever had gave me straight OT.
I think perhaps non-exempt workers ARE required to be given OT, though.
Last edited by Stormcrow73; 01-24-2008 at 01:04 PM..
Reason: added info
The government should have NOTHING to do with MANDATING vacation. What would be good is if those who feels so strongly about this made a huge push for educating businesses about the pros and cons.
If it truly gives a production advantage, they would see it, and they would like it. They would boost their business while any competitors who didn't try it would not get the boost. This would make them a more attractive employer, which would lead to higher quality candidates, new hires, and long term happy employees. The better company outperforms the competitors and the competitor either catches on and starts doing the same or they start losing out on business and end up either staying stagnant or declining.
Free market would solve this on its on IMO. Government has enough stuff to be doing right now. Maybe they should look into how to stimulate their own productivity as it has been severely lacking for a while now.
Nope!! I have precisely the same type of job I've always since college: exempt, and I now get no OT. Every other exempt job I've ever had gave me straight OT.
I think perhaps non-exempt workers ARE required to be given OT, though.
I did mention exempt and non-exempt (using different words) about two messages ago.
The government doesn't mandate health insurance, but if an employer chooses to provide it, then they can be audited by the Department of Labor. ERISA mandated benefits audits (pensions, 401Ks, etc) and put health insurance in the mix. So small companies who provide health insurance are being audited and the big boys playing with pensions have legal departments to deal with their audits or lack thereof.
If vacations were a government mandate, it would just mean that there would be more government oversight, more tax dollars used up, less money left to pay decent wages.
Good employers do their best to provide benefits and to take care of their employees. The rest don't keep people.
It's an interesting concept, and it might actually be true, as counterintuitive as it may seem to some. I had a conversation with an economist a while ago who pointed out that employee productivity per hour falls off dramatically when hours are increased beyond a certain point (about 10 per day), and that annual productivity is actually raised when people have an assured six weeks of vacation time.
There are several reasons behind this, some of which are obvious, and some more subtle. Exhausted employees, as you would expect, tend to scale their work performance way back, as a good chunk of their energy has to be devoted merely to keep them alert and awake. Over time, this leads to frustration and demoralization, which also reduces productivity. It increases health care costs as well, since employees who spend more time at the workplace end up taking less care of themselves physically, and eating poorer diets. The mental aspect often leads to expensive anti-anxiety or mood-elevating prescription drug treatments that might have been avoided with more vacation time.
Also, more employees develop strategies for dealing with longer hours that hurt productivity - an employee who knows he has to work for 12 hours in a particular day will consciously or unconsciously space out tasks in order to reduce the work burden at any particular moment. Instead of eight hours of hard work, you get 12 hours of softer work that results in approximately the same amount of work product, but with the stress to the employee of the longer hours, less time at home, etc.
However, employers tend to get into arms races with one another, and are reluctant to increase vacation time because it might 'look lazy.' Many economists argue that the only way to break this downward race is for the government to step in and mandate more vacation time. These economists don't argue for this because they feel sorry for employees, but because, as economists, they feel it would maximize economic productivity.
Does that idea deserve further study and exploration, or is it a 'socialist plot' that should be rejected outright?
No. Being paid for NOT working is not effective at all. Increase expectations, until you find the optimum level, and stick with that.
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Mandated Anything?
