My dad’s from the state of Texas, but since I was born (22 years ago), he’s been in Ohio. We’re currently on vacation, but we just got in a huge argument after he told me that a young co-op at his position (as a civil engineer) “selfishly let the team down” by not working over 40 hours in a week, when the co-op would literally not get paid any overtime at all. Not time, not time and a half; they’d get paid ZERO extra dollars for any hours over 40. I argued that it’s literal slave labor, and the job of paying the employees should fall on his boss, but he would not listen, saying we don’t live in an “ideal world,” and that if I have that mentality, I will never survive in my field. He thinks I should be doing 45 hour weeks and billing my employer for 40 (I’m a computer science student who’s also co-oping).
Can any civil engineers confirm if this is how the industry is for you, and suggest any arguments I can use? If my dad is pressuring people into slave labor, I want to stop it immediately.
This is what I have drafted so far:
https://www.findlaw.com/employment/wages-and-benefits/is-it-illegal-to-work-off-the-clock.html
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/whd/overtime
If your work has been doing this to employees, it is ILLEGAL and you should NOT be supporting it by pressuring people into doing literal slave labor. That would make you complicit in illegal behavior.
If your work environment required all employees to suck the dick of the boss in order to get a salaried position, would you do it, or would you leave the job, sue them, and get them shut the fuck down for doing illegal and immoral shit?!
If every road that is ever made required this, then I’d rather drive on dirt.
It is your boss’s responsibility to get you your money. That is their job description. It is your job to do your best possible work for your boss. If you are paid unfairly, or your company is witholding pay from ANYONE, the people responsible should be fired and blacklisted from their position.
Sorry for the rant, I’m just still pissed at this whole interaction, and he went to bed already, so I can’t continue any sort of debate.