Game Developer Now Offering Employees Overtime

Via Joystiq comes a story from the European game development website Develop, saying that the UK developer Free Radical will be offering employees overtime for crunch mode sessions. "Steve Ellis of Free Radical says the days of 'bonuses that pay off your mortgage are long gone' and that they've 'decided to start paying people for the work that they do -- even when that work is outside their normal hours.' Ellis says that the industry as a whole will eventually go this way, but they prefer to do it sooner rather than later. Although there are so many companies who are guilty of not paying their employees for working extra hours, EA gets picked on more often than not because of the infamous EA Spouse saga."

Not like this will happen in the US

[Black Art]

Current employment law allows employers in the US to exempt pretty much any and all employees who work with computers from overtime. If you were not exempt before 2004, the revisions made by Congress pretty much assured you are now.

We don't buy slaves any more, we rent them.

Re:Not like this will happen in the US

[Wordplay]

You're incorrect.

An exemption was inserted in the last few years that covers "computer systems analysts, computer programmers, software engineers, and other similarly skilled workers in the computer field who meet certain tests regarding their job duties and who are paid at least $455 per week on a salary basis or paid on an hourly basis, at a rate not less than $27.63 an hour."

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/fairpay/fs17e_computer.htm [dol.gov]

Re:Not like this will happen in the US

[PreviouslySeen]

FLSA--Fair Labor Standards act.


It governs the classification of exempt (salaried;not eligible for overtime) vs non-exempt (hourly;eligible for overtime)

disclaimer: US only.
http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/flsa/ [dol.gov]