Former Tampa Trib sports writer suing Media General

[RickStain]

This could really blow up, though, because as everyone has said, the next paper that shows me its entire newsroom is operating 100 percent under labor law guidelines will be the first.

Ours does.

Granted, ours isn't a *good* paper. But you didn't specify that

 

[JayFarrar]

This could really blow up, though, because as everyone has said, the next paper that shows me its entire newsroom is operating 100 percent under labor law guidelines will be the first.

Ours does.

Granted, ours isn't a *good* paper. But you didn't specify that

doubtful. maybe on paper, but not in practice.
and that's really kind of the point.

 

[RickStain]

doubtful. maybe on paper, but not in practice.
and that's really kind of the point.

I'd dead serious. There are only three of us on hourly wages, and we get paid for every cent of overtime we work.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

Maybe someone in management was stupid enough to leave an e-paper trail of e-mails or he could have been sneaky and recorded phone conversations asking about his schedule (not likely, but possible I guess). This could really blow up, though, because as everyone has said, the next paper that shows me its entire newsroom is operating 100 percent under labor law guidelines will be the first.

My last paper did operate under the labor law guidelines.

If you thought you would go over the 40 hours, it was your responsiblity to tell your manager in advance. If you did, then the manager could ask his boss for OT pay. If it was granted (which was rare) the employee got the OT pay. If not, employee left early.

They were actually pretty strict on it because they were afraid to get caught by the labor folks. But at the same time, they were strict in making sure that you were productive for those 40 hours, especially if you were going over that.

The first paper that I worked at wouldn't pay for OT, and as I've said before, I ended up working 45-50 hours weeks. At the same time, I felt that as a beginner, I wasn't in a position to squawk.

Years later, I found out that someone did complain, and now everyone there has to punch a timeclock.

 

[SportsGuyBCK]

This could settle. I doubt they want the wage and hour folks to come by.

You'd be surprised what those wage and hour guys can turn up ... back in the early years of my career, I was working for a small daily that was part of a chain of papers owned by a notorious penny-pincher (his name rhymes with "dark") ... one thing they pulled on their employees was telling them that a certain amount of OT was already factored into their pathetic weekly pay (you'd were supposedly getting X for 40 hours, and time-and-a-half for 5) ... well, about a month after I left, the W&H inspectors showed up and tore through the place (and others owned by this chain) for several days ... a month later, I got a BIG check for back overtime owed, and all the papers installed time clocks ...

 

[Roving_Gambler]

Boo-effing-hoo.

You're in an industry that's on its last legs. You're allegedly doing work about which you're passionate. You're trying to differentiate yourself from competitors and colleagues alike. Presumably, you're trying to earn a better gig and a better place in life.

Yeah, you might actually work more hours without even being asked to do so.

Here's a concept: TRP (Totally Responsible Person).

Either work the extra hours necessary to do excellent work and improve your station in life ... Or ... put in your 40 hours per week and continue living in that crappy studio apartment covering preps for that 30,000 circ rag. Until it folds.

 

[Stitch]

Boo-effing-hoo.

You're in an industry that's on its last legs. You're allegedly doing work about which you're passionate. You're trying to differentiate yourself from competitors and colleagues alike. Presumably, you're trying to earn a better gig and a better place in life.

Yeah, you might actually work more hours without even being asked to do so.

Here's a concept: TRP (Totally Responsible Person).

Either work the extra hours necessary to do excellent work and improve your station in life ... Or ... put in your 40 hours per week and continue living in that crappy studio apartment covering preps for that 30,000 circ rag. Until it folds.

Working harder is not working smarter. If you work 50-60 hours per week, you're not doing anyone any favors.

 

[novelist_wannabe]

When crunch time came for his career a couple years later, that incident didn't help.

This is why most writers bite their lip and do the work - because they know if they don't they'll be branded as lazy, or not team players, or whatever other euphemism you want to attach to it. It's no-win for the writer. If you turn in more than 40 on your card, the response is, "aren't you competent enough to complete this in 40 hours?" If you don't work more than 40 and things don't get done, same thing. And if you play along and pencil-whip the 40, you get taken advantage of. I don't know if it's the same with other parts of the newsroom, but being in the "toy department" we're viewed with the labor-of-love colored glasses.

This was my experience. My first daily stop, I walked out of there with hundreds of hours of unpaid overtime. And I had made sure I was honest on my time sheets how many hours I worked. I wasn't pencil-whipping 40-hour weeks. Ultimately, I decided that if I took them to task, it would hurt me with future potential employers. Looking back now, I should have pursued it, just from the standpoint that they were so abysmally cheap. But then, every other paper I worked for, except one, was the same way, so my original line of thinking has merit. Anyway, I sat on it. Several years later, another reporter filed a complaint with the department of labor and they got nailed for all kinds of overtime pay.

Now, in my state, the labor law requires you to supervise two or more people in order to be considered salaried, with a list of noted exceptions, none of which fell in any newsroom I've ever seen. Here, they could probably lobby to have reporters included as professional, non-exempt jobs, but apparently tha hasn't happened. Comp time was required to be paid in the same pay period, I believe. These are points that vary from state to state. My state is a "right to work" state, so the rules are heavily in favor of employers.

 

[Rhody31]

This could settle. I doubt they want the wage and hour folks to come by.

You'd be surprised what those wage and hour guys can turn up ...

My co-worker is better than myself at asking the boss to give us a raise, and while she declined, she didn't disagree with him when he - who along with me do editors' work at a reporters' hourly pay - said "well, we want to be paid as much as editors, but I guess with overtime we're making as much as them."
Of course, now we're screwed because they've stripped our overtime, so a lot of our local HS teams are not seeing themselves in the paper because we won't work for free.

 

[Wonderlic]

This might explain why some of the Media General shops have suddenly gotten very strict about hours worked.

We've been trying to figure out why they didn't care about people working at home for years and now when the region has gotten record snowfall the company is saying you can came to the office and work or you can take a vacation day.

I work at a MG shop and today was called into a meeting with the paper's editor, who explained that I was not allowed to work from home and that it had always been MG policy. (Which just isn't true.) I asked him where in the employee handbook this was written and he couldn't tell me. Guess what? It's not in there.

I've been at this place for three years and have never had this issue come up. And I've produced a good deal of award-winning work from my home office. He acted surprised when I rattled off numerous major projects that I've produced and told him that the bulk of that work was done at home. I find it hard to imagine that this actually surprised him.

Tonight, all of our local events were canceled and our deadline was pushed up to an embarrassingly early hour, so there really was no reason to drive to the office. Even though I was working on a project for future publication, I was told I couldn't do this work from home. He couldn't tell me why, or explain what benefit there was in driving across town to work from the office as opposed to my home.

The kicker? My direct boss, the sports editor, and the regional copy desk are located more than 60 miles away.

I know that this is a corporate issue, and not something that came about specifically because of my actions, though I was almost meant to feel as if I've been doing something wrong. It also made me feel as if my boss doesn't trust me, like I need a babysitter or something to ensure that I'm working a certain amount of hours in a given week. In my mind it's a question of credibility, and really, if your boss doesn't trust you then what the heck is the point of being employed as a reporter?

 

[Peg McNichol]

Computer forensics can prove an awful lot ...

 

[Fredrick]

Most newspapers are in complete violation of every labor law out there.

Find me a professional or college beat writer who works 40 hours a week during the season. I would guess that most work between 60-80 depending on how you count travel. I guarantee you, none of them get the overtime they would at a normal job if they logged that number of hours.

Comp time is illegal. During my 13 years in the business, I had to turn in timecard after timecard that said I was working 40 hours when everybody in the office knew I was off. I also had to turn in timecard after timecard that said I was working 40 hours during the season when I was working much more than that.

The only exceptions are those who are on straight salary, which is fairly rare in the newspaper business, unless you're a columnist.

My newspaper is guilty on all accounts. All the writers work 60 or more and get paid for 40. You do it or you get fired. Case closed.