Programmer Sues VU Games Over Excessive Work Hours

eToychest writes "According to Reuters, a video game programmer has sued Vivendi Universal Games, claiming he and his colleagues were regularly forced to work extra hours and denied overtime pay. The suit, filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, is one of many filed against companies in the state in recent months, as employees seek to be classified as overtime-eligible to obtain compensation for working more than 8 hours a day or 40 hours a week. The suit seeks payment of back overtime wages plus other damages. This comes the recent announcement that the company said it would cut more than one-third of its staff, excluding Blizzard. Of the things mentioned in the suit, the complaints include no overtime compensation, and employees being ordered to falsify timesheets to indicate they worked shorter days." This report is especially interesting in light of the recent IGDA 'Quality Of Life' survey for game developers.

Re:the problem is...

[mkohel]

If I recall my employment law class correctly, just being salaried is not enough to make you exempt from overtime. Of course this probably differs state to state. Heres a link http://www.ewin.com/articles/exneot.htm

If an employee does not meet even one of the criteria, he or she is not exempt (non-exempt) from the provisions of the law. ....

Exempt Professional Employees are those employed in a bona fide professional capacity whose primary work requires knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired through a prolonged course of intellectual instruction and study, as distinguished from a general academic education and from training in the performance of routine mental, manual or physical processes;

and/or work that is original and creative in character in a recognized field;

and whose work requires discretion or judgment in its performance; and work which is predominantly intellectual and varied in character and is of such character that the output produced cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time;

and who does not devote more than 20% of his time to nonexempt activities;

and who is compensated at the rate of $1,150 a month.

Re:the problem is...

[DeadEye]

What I've often been told (and I am a game programmer working on a major PS2 title [demonstone.com]) is that "the compensation for your overtime was built into your salary". Of course, they only tell you that after it becomes an issue, not when you are negotiating contracts. In the end, it's the video game industry, and as much as people would like to compare the video game industry with the movie industry, one thing they actually have in common is that they simply would not be possible without the dedication and passion the developers put into them. There is nothing particularly smart or revolutionary about the business end of those industries, it's all in the "little" people who actually do the work. Long story short, you have to want to do it, and it will be hell at times.

Re:What is wrong with these people?

[Colazar]

How you can be a non-exempt programmer is beyond me, but that's a different issue.

There's a checklist on conditions that you have to meet to be exempt (which I don't remember all of off the top of my head), but the gist of it boils down to this: you can't be exempt unless you have control.

To be exempt you really have to be a manager (supervise other people) or have near-complete control over how and when you do your job. It is very difficult to *compell* overtime from an exempt employee--it may end up being necessary logistically to get the job done, but that is employee's decision, *not* the employer's. Special circumstances can over-ride this, of course, but if there are "special circumstances" a good percentage of the time, then those circumstances aren't really very special anymore, and the job has probably been mis-classified.

Re:Last time I checked

[Colazar]

The point is that the managers of the company were forcing non-exempt employees to work more time than they reported. It's ILLEGAL. Furthermore, IANAL, but I bet it qualifies as tax fraud as well.

Absolutely it is tax fraud. Payroll tax fraud. They didn't pay FICA or FIT on any of those unreported wages, and that'd be at least 30% of the gross value of the wages. That's one reason the government tends to come down very heavy on these kinds of things--it's costing them serious money.

Don't ever mess with payroll taxes, by the way. As a company, you can get away with not paying your bills, or not paying your employees, or even not paying the bank. But if you ever miss paying your payroll tax deposit, they will throw you under the jail.

Re:I also work in the game industry

[Phronesis]

The article states that the employees were paid for a 40 hour week, and used time cards, which management pressured them to falsify in order to understate actual hours worked. If the employees held exempt salaried positions, then time cards would not have been necessary.

The problem here seems to be that management wanted it both ways---they wanted to hire the employees as hourly, not salaried workers, but not to pay them for all the hours worked. There would be no grounds for a lawsuit if management had been upfront about this being a salaried, unlimited hours position.

Re:Last time I checked

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you kidding? If the option is "work overtime or lose your job", how many people are going to quit? How many are in a financial position to do so?

Why aren't they in a financial position to do so? The honest answer from most people I know would be that they would rather have a big screen TV, a library of DVDs, a motorcycle, and a boat rather than the security of being able to support their current lifestyle for a year if they lost their job.

Re:Glad Someone Has Finally Done This

[AltaMannen]

I sympathise with you on these issues but I think the situation has become far better than it used to be. Sure, some places may still treat their employees like a cowfarm in california, especially if you work at the only videogame company in the country (like the one in Norway, which is _NOT_ a privilege to work in) but where I have been the last five years or so have all been very careful to keep employees satisfied even if they have to do months of crunch-time and comp-time is common (it may not be more than 10% of time invested but it adds up at the end). If you work in an unfair situation in the game industry you really should start to look around, you might not find anything right away but staying and complaining sends the wrong signal to oppresive employers. And remember that you don't have to wait for your game to get finished to leave, it just helps a little to have one more finished game on your resume. Your manager will probably tell you that you won't get another job in the industry if you do so but that is the smelliest bullshit ever.

Ah, but...

[Mongoose Disciple]

Try to explain (especially to an HR person) during an interview why you haven't been working for a year.

At 9 out of 10 interviews, "Because the economy is shitty and I didn't want to work in sweatshop-like conditions." isn't going to cut it. They'll smile, nod, figure there's something wrong with you that you're not admitting, and quietly circular-file your resume.

Re:high unemployment?

[Poseidon88]

That's a national rate. In the last couple years, some states have had rates as high as 8.5%, and that's only counting the people who applied for unemployment benefits. Add in the homeless and people who just decided to live off their savings for a while, and I imagine you'd probably break that double-digits barrier. Not sure what this has to do with the story, though. All too often, these days, employers are trying to cut costs by hiring fewer people to do more work, and not compensating them for the extra time. I think a win in this case would be a great breakthrough for the software industry, where such situations are almost a way of life.

Am I the only one? Not!

[Tojosan]

I know I'm not the only programmer out there that isn't a total slave. :)
The normal routine where I work is about 50 hours a week for a non manager programmer. Sometimes less, sometimes more. Mostly not on the more side. I believe we are fairly compensated for our time too.

Of course everyone is assigned in a group and thus stuck supporting a small range of apps and new development. Maybe this helps but it also limits your future opportunities.

Overall I'm betting lots of programmers aren't getting the raw deal we see here. And trust me, I'm enough of a devotee to my off time that when it gets back to 60 hour weeks, I'll be looking for a new job.

Be well,
Tojosan