Erana said:
Baron_BJ said:
Technically what they're doing is illegal. You should be getting overtime. They're abusing the condition the job market is most likely in your country (some countries didn't crash, like mine). You could contact the office of fair trade, often times, especially situations like this, they will sue on your behalf. You could tear them a new one and as much as I'm against "suing" and the "abuse of the legal system", in this case it's the right thing to do. Just watch your ass after the case is filed, OR you threaten him with legislation; they can't fire you over something like this, but they will be looking for excuses.
Oooh, you're not American? Mind sharing where you are and how your country perceives America's financial situation? I like new perspectives.
And yeah, I do remember reading about this kinda situation in my management class. Its really annoying to have to bite the bullet, but if you really need this job, you may just have to martyr your pride. Still, if you want to get some help from the government, you likely have grounds to do so. It is bad business practice, but I suggest you build your case in an articulate manner and make certain that if they try to run you off, the correlation between your challenging the management and their sudden turn on you is blatant. Perhaps ask around and talk to prior employees? Someone else in the thread pointed out a disturbingly common position where businesses hire part-time help, abuse the employer/employee situation, and get them to leave when there's trouble.
I'm Australian, we currently have some of the best workplace laws in the world, but with regards to the western world, a lot of laws are similar and standard. We dodged the recession altogether, however we almost went down when our old prime minster (who was thrown out before his term ended because he almost cost the country well over half the mining companies; the one thing that saved us) when he constantly gave out "stimulus money" which pissed away all our excess cash, not to mention that the past and current Government is constantly giving away assistance money, Australia has literally given more money to help countries in danger (Major natural disasters, etc) than even America, and our population is 21,000,000, over 50% them being over fucking 40. Basically, think of us as in the condition of other countries in debt before the downfall (except without the impending doom, just a large amount of debt that will take a few decades to pay off, Australians are in the top 4 heavily taxed nations in the world, I think it could be number 1 or 2 at the moment, I'd need to double check).
ANYWAY, what Australia (and I assume most other countries) hears about America we really only hear from American sources, and extremely bias ones at that which I'd have to assume are exaggerating for good television (CNN reports sent oversees, a lot of American Talk Shows that are milking the sympathy of people; Oprah, Dr. Phil, etc). The general consensus is that the economy is stabilizing extremely slowly, partially because of MAJOR cutbacks on almost every front, leading to a lack of employment (I'd assume around 20% or so at this period, a very large number) which is causing problems with unemployment and problems in small chains and independent stores. A sizable number of people lost their homes, etc, when things fell through, a situation that actually I'm not sure about, how is housing going at this point?
Obviously ways of getting quality information that is without bias on the current condition of America is a bit out of my reach, without me heading out to go out and research it heavily, sifting through crap)which most people are too lazy to do anyway.