Overworked and Underpaid: Portrait of a California IT Worker

May 23, 2007, 1:15PM. By Nate Hendley

Sacramento, CAFor Claudia, Christmas Eve 2003 was a night to remember, for all the wrong reasons. At the time, Claudia, an Information Technology (IT) sector worker, was working for CUDL (CU Direct Corporation), a financial services firm specializing in car loans, headquartered in Rancho Cucamonga, CA.

"The company closed at 2 pm, so the employees could enjoy the holidays," recalls 47-year-old Claudia.. "I left at about 3 pm. At about 5 pm, [the company] called me at home with problems. I was on the phone for hours while guests arrived, ate and held a party at my house without me."

On another occasion, Claudia (who would rather not give her full name, given that she still works in IT), was sidetracked at an important awards ceremony for her son because of work.

"They were honouring him at an awards ceremony at about 8 pm when my manager called to discuss a software release," she states. "I missed him receiving his medals."

Claudia might have been somewhat mollified had she received overtime pay for working on these occasions. No such luck. Like many of her fellow computer engineers, designers, programmers and analysts in California's huge IT sector, Claudia had to work excruciatingly long hours for no extra money.

In California, all employees are supposed to get overtime if they toil longer than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week. There are some exemptions, however: professionals, such as doctors, accountants, outside sales representatives and managers are all exempt from laws mandating overtime. A manager is defined as someone who spends 50% or more of their time on supervisory duties.

Here's where the problem comes in: greedy companies have been known to classify employees as "managers" even if the only person they supervise is themselves.

Such was the situation Claudia found herself in at CUDL. A graduate of the University of Illinois, Claudia began working at CUDL in August 2003. She had previously held down a job at TMS, another financial services organization that was bought out by First Union Corporation, which in turn was bought out by Wachovia Corporation.

At CUDL, Claudia was technically a manager, even though she had few managerial duties. Even if she wasn't managing anybody, Claudia had no shortage of her own work to do.

"I worked weekends, late evenings, early mornings (some meetings were scheduled at 7 am)," she states. "I had a Treo [smart] phone and was expected to be on call 24 hours a day."

Claudia received a starting salary of $60,000 a year. Sounds impressive, until you realize she was regularly putting in 50-60 hour weeks. If she worked 50 weeks a year, Claudia could expect to earn $24 - 20 per hour (about half the going hourly rate for computer programmers in California).

"I argued all the time with my management that we were underpaid and should be paid OT," states Claudia. "I always had a back-load of work. I worked many long weekends. It definitely impacted my time with my family. The phone rang while I was at my son's music lessons, during dinner parties, all the time ... the phone mail going off all night was the worst."

Claudia was eventually laid off from CUDL in March 2006. She has never received a dime in overtime pay from the company for all the extra hours she was forced to put in.

Should you find yourself in a similar situation, think about contacting a lawyer.