overtime
Latest
Apple ordered to pay employees for time lost to bag searches
Apple broke the law in California by failing to pay employees while they waited for mandatory bag and iPhone searches, the state's supreme court has ruled. The fight began over six years ago, when Apple Store employees sued the company, saying they were required to clock out before being searched for stolen merchandise or trade secrets. The workers felt they were still under Apple's control during that five to 20 minute process and should therefore be compensated. Apple in turn argued that the employees could choose not to bring their bags or iPhones, thus avoiding a search in the first place.
'Red Dead Redemption 2': Separation of crunch and art
Four days before the debut of Red Dead Redemption 2, arguably the most high-profile video game launch of the year, the non-profit organization Take This sent out an email to its supporters and the media. "Crunch is yet again a hot topic in the gaming news," it began. "With the recent stories about crunch development there has been a renewed interest in Take This' 2016 white paper on crunch and many organizations have come to us for comment on the topic."
Seoul will turn off workers' PCs to curb excessive overtime
South Korea has a serious problem with overtime. A typical government worker puts in 1,000 more hours per year than their equivalents in other countries, which could easily affect their long-term health. Seoul's Metropolitan Government may have a simple technology-based solution, however: force workers' computers to shut down. It's launching an initiative that turns off all PCs by a set hour, giving staff little choice but to head outside.
Comcast's extra ads ruin NFC championship game conclusion in some areas
It wasn't just RIM that had designs on the limelight during the football action last night. Comcast commercials appeared over the NFC Championship game last night, thoughtfully playing over the climax of the match 'twixt the Giants and the 49ers. Frustrated fans who missed out on parts of the fourth quarter and overtime promptly began voicing dissent on the company's support forums. The Washington Post has a quote from spokesperson Amiee Metrick indicating the problems were due to a possible "equipment failure" at a local Fox affiliate, WTTG, resulting in the ill-timed ads reported in Washington D.C. We've heard that of customers receiving a $10 credit and an apology, but it seems unlikely to soothe the brow of those -- like the person who recorded video of the incident you can see after the break -- thinking of switching to FiOS. Update: We've received a response from Comcast (included after the break), and updated the post to clarify the apparent breakdown was at local Fox affiliate WTTG.[Thanks, John]
THQ and Kaos defend 6 month 'crunch' for Homefront
Accusations of an exhaustive "crunch" at Homefront developer Kaos have been met head-on by parent company THQ and the studio's general manager David Votypka. Develop is covering all sides of the issue, including Votypka's acknowledgement that the studio has been crunching for the last six months, with 10 hour days. He notes, "If this seems unique or abhorrent, I would have to suggest that any assessment regarding a 10 hour work day would need to consider a much larger segment of the American workforce." The anonymous employee also wrote up their own piece for Develop expressing fears about "THQ publicly [saying] things that glorify crunch time." The source feels that management shouldn't have put the team on a schedule that created this extended, "seven day a week crunch mode." "Crunch," loosely defined as the overtime-intensive period before a game ships, is an industry standard. The issue certainly gets sensitive whenever brought up, and it always seems like the specter of EA Spouse is watching the conversation.
Foxconn increases wages by 30 percent as deaths continue to mount
According to Reuters, Foxconn will be raising worker wages an additional 10% from the original 20% raise announced last week. Foxconn spokesman, Arthur Huang, said that the 30% base wage increase takes effect immediately. Foxconn admits that it hopes to earn the respect of its workers and raise efficiency with the pay increase while offsetting rising costs on the Chinese mainland. The company's shares fell by 2% following the announcement (in a market down just 0.4%, relatively), worried perhaps that the raise would erode operating profits. All this comes as more Foxconn deaths -- now at 12 -- are being reported. Family of Yan Li, a Foxconn engineer, claims that their son died of exhaustion after working non-stop for 34-hours, then returning for another 12-hours after a 10-hour break. Police have already ruled out suicide and homicide in the case. Nevertheless, Yan Li's family is demanding 250,000 yuan (about 25 times the worker's annual base salary) in compensation. Foxconn accepts no responsibility in the matter saying it would only pay out "humanitarian terms" to the family.
Labor practice protest goes down at Computex, Steve Jobs called an 'OEM profit bloodsucker'
It's hard to say if today's protest outside of the Computex show floor has anything in particular to do with Taiwan's president showing up to tour the expo, but there's zero doubt that it has a lot to do with the recent attention given to questionable labor practices in Foxconn's Chinese facilities. A good two dozen protesters were out in force today, with loads of police and TV cameras giving the world a look at how these folks feel about Apple CEO Steve Jobs and Wintek's CEO in particular. As for Jobs, he was being labeled an "OEM profit bloodsucker" and "the man behind irresponsible contractors," while a slew of others were deemed "production line killers, number one union butchers, representatives of mass layoffs and kings of chemical killing." We also spotted instances of "tired to death" and "suicide overtime work," neither of which are particularly rosy. Hit the gallery below for more of the mayhem. %Gallery-94025%
Industry pipes up on lack of overtime pay from crunch time
Just over a month ago, Joystiq talked to Epic Games' Mike Capps about crunch times in game development cycles and how many hours his employees are expected to work throughout the development of a game. Interestingly, Develop put the question of crunch time (among other things) to "over 350 industry professionals" via a poll and found that nearly 98 percent of respondents received no overtime pay for crunch work.When we spoke with Capps, he pointed out that, for his company, crunch isn't a matter of force but that employees understand its necessity. "Our guys vote on how they want to crunch and last time they chose having weekends off ... I had one or two that were, wow that went too long, we had a rough time, we made some mistakes in planning but that's not to say that crunching is the wrong thing to do," Capps told us. He also noted that while crunch can hurt, employees (at least at Epic) are able to take a few weeks off between projects after a crunch so as to recharge, saying, "If you scoop someone off the front lines of Afghanistan and fly them to Iraq and you put them back out and you keep doing it, performance is going to suffer." It seems to us that, like most things in life, generalizing -- for instance, about the gaming industry as a whole -- doesn't make a whole lot of sense. 98 percent of those polled may not receive overtime for crunching on a project, but they may very well receive large bonuses after the product ships, or a long vacation, or a variety of other incentives. One thing's for sure: 100 percent of Joystiq writers make no overtime pay. [Image credit]
Realtime Worlds offers workers 'generous' benefits
The video game industry has the dubious reputation for working its talent to the bone, and in this economy many have been rewarded for their hard work with a pat on the back and a swift kick to the curb. Now Crackdown developer Realtime Worlds says that while it can't promise its employees won't work ridiculous hours, it offers workers "one of the most generous benefits packages" in the industry.Realtime Worlds notes that it currently has over 40 positions open, jobs that will likely be filled in part by the pile of resumes the company collected during GDC. It's reassuring to see any company step up for its workers, and while devs grind their fingers down for hours on end, with paid (paid!) overtime and medical insurance at least they'll have something more to show for it than a pink slip and bloody stumps where their fingers used to be.
One down: Tecmo overtime lawsuit settled
Good news, Tecmo employees! No no, please don't get up. That bed under your desk really looks quite comfortable and snuggly. Now, if you'll just minimize that window filled with Ninja Gaiden II: Burnt Sienna code ... there, that's it. You'll be pleased to note that Tecmo has reached a settlement with Hiroaki Ozawa and Tatsuki Tsunoda of Team Ninja, who recently filed a lawsuit against the Dead or Alive publisher in response to an alleged overtime pay dispute.According to Gamasutra, the pair claimed that employees (like you!) were not paid according to documented overtime hours, going as far as to say that the company created false documents to cover up the salary shenanigans. With this lawsuit wrapped up, it still leaves one to go with departed Team Ninja boss, Tomonobu Itagaki. Alright, back to work! And go brush your teeth, seriously.
Apple engineers: We're indentured servants
On Monday, a group of Apple technical staffers filed suit against Apple alleging that the company denied them overtime pay and meal compensation. Both the pay and meal compensation are required by California state law. The suit also claims that many Apple employees are subjected to working conditions that are similar to indentured servitude.The lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, David Walsh, was an Apple network engineer from 1995 to 2007. He stated that he was often required to work more than 40 hours a week, miss meals, and spend evenings and weekends on call without any overtime pay or meal compensation. [Author's personal comment: this is not unusual in the tech industry]Walsh alleges that Apple deliberately classified Walsh and others as management employees so that they would not receive overtime compensation as required by California law for hourly employees. The class action suit also seeks to include the staffers at Apple Stores as plaintiffs.Should the plaintiffs win, Apple could be required to revise its compensation practices and pay retroactive compensation to many present and past employees. Apple has not responded to the complaint. Thanks to Charles for the tip!
Free Radical implementing overtime pay ... seriously
The notion of paying overtime is absurd for many employees and observers in the gaming industry, but Free Radical (Haze) tells Develop magazine that they're looking to change perceptions of working in the industry by offering overtime pay to employees. 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. Of course EA's image has changed recently to become a great place to work according to Fortune Magazine. Now please pardon us while we check with our local priest to make sure there wasn't an update on Hell freezing over we missed.
Sony to cough up $8.5m settlement, devs finally get paid
The law offices of Shapiro, Haber & Urmy have publicized the settlement terms of a class action lawsuit filed against SCEA in February 2005, which alleged that the company failed to compensate a number of game developers for overtime work. The settlement will see $8.5 million paid out to current and former employees involved in the suit, and, along with the overdue checks, Sony will "reclassify" Associate Artists and Artist 1s as nonexempt (from overtime pay) job positions. Under the terms, Sony will uphold its denial of the allegations, admitting to no wrongdoing. Ah, formalities...The settlement is still pending court approval. Regardless, the deal would be called off if for some unimaginable reason (it's "free" money, people!) enough class members opted out.
EA an awful place to work. Awful great!
var digg_url = 'http://www.joystiq.com/2007/05/16/ea-an-awful-place-to-work-awful-great/'; Remember when the online buzz about Electronic Arts was all about overworked staff and unpaid overtime? That's so two years ago. The new buzz, apparently, is that EA is the second best place for new graduates to work, according to a Fortune Magazine list.They make a decent enough case -- EA employees get five to ten free games per year, heavy discounts on games and systems, plus amenities like an on-site gym, a DVD library and stock options. Still, given the past complaints, we can't help but gape at Fortune's statement that EA employees "might not have time to spend any of the $60,000 starting salary that's offered to the average entry-level worker." They had to understand the irony dripping from that line when they wrote it. Didn't they?[Thanks Keavin]
