My dad is an exempt employee for a retail store in CA (LA area). He has worked his way up with the same company for nearly 30 years and is now a store manager. He averages 60hrs/wk plus the time he spends on his days off.
Despite his best efforts to avoid it, every week on his days off he has to take calls, answer text messages and respond to 'urgent' emails. This past week during his two “days off”, my dad had to attend a conference call, took 17 calls, responded to 23 text messages and glimpsed through 47 emails because his bosses said it was mandatory and necessary for the business. Tomorrow he is heading back to work after his two “days off” looking even more burned out than when his days off began. Yet when any employee reaches out to the bosses on their days off, their phones go straight to voicemail and those fucks are nowhere to be found.
No matter what day my dad is off, some bullshit conference call always comes up to discuss shit everyone already knew that nobody gives a fuck about. Im fucking tired of that shit company treating employees like their property and forcing them to work on their days off.
What can he (and other exempt employees) do to push back and at the very least gave some sense of time off during their time off? What protection does he have under CA law?