What to do about unethical former employer 6

[Grubbyky]

I entered full time employment in May 2006(still finishing BS Civil/Env. w/ two distance learning courses). I went to work for a land surveyor that owns an engineering firm, and came to find out that he was making other employees fill out new time sheets with hours charged to projects that weren't being worked on, and then shred the old, correct time sheet.

I have since moved from the area and have found work at a ready-mix plant w/ the main duty of being project manager for constructing a new ready-mix plant.

My question is if there is anything I can do about my former employer; he sits on the board for the Pro. land surveyors, and the evidence of his actions is routinely destroyed. I know he has done this for a long time, since while I was looking for other employment I spoke with someone who had worked for this same person about a decade earlier and witnessed the same thing.

I think something should be done, but I don't have evidence to prove his actions.

 

[Ussuri]

I used to work for a large civil consultant where everyone had to complete timesheets accurately. In Europe this is the law under the EU Working Time Directive which is there to prevent people working too many hours over a set time frame.

This used to cause a problem in the billing of the clients. Most if not all staff worked unpaid overtime. Which the company would not charge to the project. They took the view that as we are not paying the staff the time shouldnt be recorded against the budget (shortsighted as then at the end of the job you dont really know how many hours it took so will underestimate the next project. Not a problem as the staff still work for free).

To get round this there was a dump code which went nowhere except to prove the exact number of hours an individual worked.

 

[BigInch]

IMO, that practice is even worse for a lot of reasons, although perhaps legal if you play with the exempt and nonexempt classifications. In Spain it is illegal to do that, as I believe it is in the whole of the EU, no?

BigInch-born in the trenches.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[Ussuri]

To which point are you referring? Not charging all the hours worked to the client? or people working unpaid overtime in general?

The unpaid overtime code came to comply with the law, so the company knew how many hours staff were actually working. They would check the hours and if anyone was working too much they were told to reduce their hours.

 

[GeoPaveTraffic]

Time sheets should not be changed by management or changes directed by management, unless there is an error in the timesheet. In the end the timesheet should reflect ALL of the hours worked by the employee on each job/project/task that the employee worked. That is the LAW in the US if you work on ANY government projects (DOE, DOD, etc).

Now whether or not the employee gets paid for all of those hours depends on if the employee is exempt or non-expempt and the terms of their employeement. Along the same line of thought, whether the client gets bill for all of those hours depends on the terms of the contract between the client and the company.

With respect to some of the other comments that have been made;

1. If you don't record all of the time you work on a project, then the company has no idea if that project is making the company money or not. Obviously a very important piece of information for any company.

2. No client should EVER be billed for work that was performed on a different project. That is theft by any other name.

With respect to the original post, unless the company works for the federal government, I would drop it and be glad to be working somewhere else. However, if federal contracts, and possibly state depending ont the state, were involved, I would call the agency and "drop a dime" on the employeer. Not to be vendictive, but to ensure that a. they no longer get federal contracts and b. that the tax payer's are not paying more and getting less.

 

[BigInch]

Ussuri,

Unpaid overtime (even to exempt classified employees) is not permissible, if the unpaid overtime can be considered a regular practice of the company.

BigInch-born in the trenches.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[Ussuri]

Big Inch

I'm not sure whether this is illegal or not, maybe someone with a better legal background than me can chime in.

Everywhere I have worked senior staff do not get paid overtime while junior staff do. I have no idea why this is the case. They just get paid their salary every month regardless of the hours worked. But nearly all the senior staff I know work more than the basic 37.5 hours on which the salary is based. Is this illegal, I dont see why if they want to give their time to company free of charge.

 

[BigInch]

I'm no lawyer.. And If I was a lawyer, I wouldn't know what the law was in your jurisdiction anyway, so its best to get a knowledgable opinion where you live Germany/ France?. But as I understand things, the law exists to prevent or rectify unfair practices, whatever they may be.

Legality of the practice I think involves "fair compensation", which can take many forms, end-of-year bonuses, profit sharing, equal time off, assisted share purchases, vestment in pension plans, etc. I would assume the general rule is that senior types would be entitled to a larger share of those benefits, whatever form they come in, and hence the fair practice would be maintained with increased years of service.

Why would someone want to work for a profit making organization "free of charge"? Where's the fairness in that? That is not to say I don't work for free, but I reserve that time for those who [color]cannot[/color] pay and desperately need help. I volunteer for non-profit making organizations and spend some of my time designing and installing small village water supply and irrigation systems in South America and Africa. This system was installed this year.

I learned how to design a 200 VDC solar power system for the pump... not easy. (it was an existing 200 VDC motor)

http://www.faces-gambia.org/website.htm

BigInch-born in the trenches.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[Ussuri]

Senior and Junior staff get the same benefits package (leave, life insurance, private health care, pension, share purchase scheme) with the exception that the junior staff also get overtime. Senior staff will have a higher salary which may include a percentage for hours over the standard 37.5 hours. But I find it hard to believe its illegal as it is common practice in my experience.

I will quite happily work unpaid overtime if it means I can get a batch of drawings or a tender out the door on Friday. OK, this benefits the company more than me, and I maybe should have a more mercenary attitude when it comes to my time. But we digress from the original topic.

 

[BigInch]

Everybody has to find their own balance.

Common practice varies widely from country to country and culture to culture, and company to company, some more sensitive and flexible than others, some more demanding. One company I worked for absolutely prohibited any unpaid hours because they refused to sell their only product for free, and had a tendency to burn out their employees and force them to look for other work. Another didn't mind, as long as the client was charged for the hours and compensation time was liberally granted in return. What's the norm in the US and England is pretty far from for example the Mideast, or for that matter, Sweden or France.

Despite what the common practice may be in your area, usually interesting variations can be found in the local laws, both as written and as interpreted by the labor boards.

BigInch-born in the trenches.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[BigInch]

I will note that I had a plumber come over last week to fix the sink. He worked to 8:30 pm. Even though he normally quits at 6, he didn't work the extra time for free and he charged me the whole additional 2:30, including a call to his wife saying he would be late. Is there some reason you know of explaining why there is such a difference between somebody who draws pipes and somebody who installs them? I think they teach more about business in plumbing school than they do in engineering college.

BigInch-born in the trenches.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[Ussuri]

I know what you say makes sense and I'm sure all those would love to get paid for the additional hours worked. But having said that maybe its a culture thing, but certainly in the UK most people work more hours than they are paid for, at least in my experience.

I find it hard to believe there are not engineers in the US who work that little bit extra for which they are not paid just to get the job done before the weekend, or to put in a little more time to come up with a better design which gives a little satisfaction.

 

[MikeHalloran]

Of course there are US engineers who will give a little extra just to get the job done, or done right.

Engineers are stupid that way.

By which I mean, a fair number of shops here have had the unmitigated gall to formalize the practice, and _demand_ unpaid overtime, as in "We'll pay you for 40 hrs/wk, and expect you to work at least 50."





Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[BigInch]

I'll bet they didn't put that in writing.

BigInch-born in the trenches.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[MikeHalloran]

They sure do, sometimes even in job ads. Because engineers are usually 'exempt', it's perfectly legal here in the US.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[HgTX]

The reputation of the U.S. private sector (probably worse in certain non-engineering fields) is that many salaried workers will work FAR more than 40 hr/wk for no additional compensation (though maybe they wouldn't draw their high base salary, or possible bonuses, if they didn't produce the results they got from that level of work).

When my classmates and I were first on the job market, the impression I got was that in the private sector in my field I could expect to work 50-60 hours per week, or worse.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[BigInch]

I worked 15 years in the States and "exempt" only goes so far. If overtime is habitual at your company, and is without compensation, you may be able to make an issue of it. The cases I recalled above were judgments made under US Labor law. Sorry I don't remember exact details. I think it might be worth a phone call.

P.S. Call from home.

BigInch-born in the trenches.

http://virtualpipeline.spaces.msn.com

 

[bridgebuster]

Our company policy doesn't tolerate fudging time sheets but the management also won't tolerate utilization of less than 92% for most of the staff. So let's face it, sometimes we have to help a colleague along.

Regarding overtime: If it's billable we're paid; if it's not it's considered part of the job. A previous employer used to keep track of the unpaid hours and compensate us somewhat in the annual increase, and there were bonus payments in our 401k as well, but after we were sold those practices were lost. Now, only the officers of the company receive bonuses.

 

[pba]

Most engineers I've worked with (in the UK) do extra hours for free. In the private sector MORE engineers do extra hours than in government employment.

I've always believed that my salary reflects the job that I do and not the hours I work. This is in contrast to the actual wording in my contract but never mind...

I have been asked, on occasion, to book time to tasks that I wasn't working on and did so knowing that the "fraud" was internal within the company. I also work on jobs which are timecharged and would hope I have the integrity to not behave fraudulently in those cases.

My experience of timecharge work is that clients only permit this work for small sums and generally there is a cap not to be exceeded. As the cap is set at the top estimate for the job, the client rarely ends up paying more than would be the case with a lump sum fee...

 

[valleyboy]

I agree with Ussuri and pba that it is common practice to work 'free' overtime in the UK.

I have worked in both the public and private sectors. People are expected to work unpaid overtime in the private sector, whilst in the public sector you work no more than 37 hours a week, as any excess is given back to you via. flexible working arrangements.

VB