Thursday, April 29, 2004
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Slug
I have decided not to go to choir today. This is my 11th day in a row working at
CallTrex and I'm tired. I'm getting good long sleeps at night, but the fact of the matter is that I have worked 11 days in a row. My only consolation is that tomorrow, although it would be my 12th day in a row, will be the last day I will have to work before I get a day off.
There were two reasons why I took the shifts that have so grossly enlarged my work week. Both equally compelling. First of all, a major client was supposed to go live this weekend. They used to have an account with us, didn't like our service and cancelled their account. (Frankly, it's not that we were giving bad service, it was that they didn't want to pay our fees which can run rather high) Eventually they figured (with the help of our sales person) that they really did need our service and decided to re-open their account. In view of this "history" that they have with us, it was vitally important that there was enough people working on the weekend so that all of their calls would be answered. Secondly, there was the overtime pay.
Or so I thought. This is what the
BC Employment Standards Act says about overtime:
Daily Overtime
After working eight hours in a day an employee must be paid time-and-a-half for the next four hours worked, and double-time for all hours worked in excess of 12 hours in a day.
Weekly Overtime
- An employee who works more than 40 hours in a week must be paid time-and-a-half after 40 hours.
- Only the first eight hours worked each day are used to calculate total hours for weekly overtime.
- For example, An employee who worked six 11 hour days in a week, would be paid 18 hours of daily overtime and eight hours of weekly overtime at time-and-a-half.
A week runs from Sunday through Saturday for the purposes of calculating overtime.
But I was paid straight time for the 14 hours that I had worked on the weekend at the end of my 37.5 hour week. When I asked the office manager about this she said that the company only pays "Daily Overtime" and not weekly overtime. I worked 104 hours in the last two weeks and I wasn't getting paid overtime. I SMSed Jim to let him know the dismal news. Jim insisted that companies have to honour both overtimes. So I got a hold of the toll-free number for the ESA office and got Jim to call them with this question.
So it turns out that they have to honour BOTH daily and weekly overtime. I didn't quite know how to approach this subject seeing as how I already spoke to the office manager and she said that they only honoured daily overtime "as per legislation". I'm not the type to keep quiet, especially when I've worked my butt off and I feel as there is more due to me. I brought the issue up with a supervisor whom I trust and now she's talking to the managers et al. I hope I'm not targeting the future as being a shit stirrer or anything.
I feel that I brought up the subject rather diplomatically, saying that it wasn't a complaint, nor was it a demand for more money. I am of two minds as to whether I should have brought it up especially after my failed attempt to bring it to the attention of the Office Manager, but I work hard (especially if you take into account how rough my last week was) to make sure that things run alright for the company. I'm not about to get shunted for that.
posted by Joie! at
4:56 p.m.
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