The penalties for the employer are draconian. So, when this woman refused to follow instructions to obey government regulations, exposing the employer to serious penalties, what would you have the employer do?

Labor law and regulation are among the least flexible to be found anywhere; there’s no give among the regulators.

I’m a little surprised that Illinois denied her UE…in most cases in many states the employer gets hit no matter what.  I once had to fire an employee for significant theft, which was admitted.  California granted UE anyhow; when I appealed, the administrative law judge who conducted the appeal opened the discussion with “Why are you bothering with this?  You can’t win this.”  I did, but had to take it out of the bureaucracy to the courts.

Every UE claim granted is charged to the employer, and can significantly raise the  UE premiums.  So yes, a rational employer should resist UE claims that are rooted in employee misconduct.

Wage and hour suits are no joke. I actually work for a place where we have tangential involvement in these suits (in determining $ liabilities, basically) and I really can’t hold it against employers who maintain very strict policies for non-exempt employees. Putting a warning in a file just conveniently documents the fact that unpaid work was going on and that management was aware of it for the next plaintiff attorney who comes along.

“We love you. Stop that.”

The best revenge is taking your skills, tools and talent to a place that will appreciate them and you. Your former company has one less skilled employee AND the toxic management (and in your case, the creep) that costs money as it drags down productivity.

Since most laws favor companies, I’m guessing the “right-to-work” is simply a way for the employer to dodge paying any kind of severance (CEOs exempted, of course).

Philosophically yes, and I agree with the sentiment. Unfortunately, that’s not how the law works and as I understand it (I’m not a lawyer) the liability to the company under FLSA exists in perpetuity.

Were I a lawyer for the company, I would advise that the company pay the employee for the overtime (eliminating the liability), ask the employee to sign an affidavit that she understands that working off the clock is a fire-able offense, and get on with their lives.

It’s an unfortunate side effect of the law to be required to penalize good employees for going above and beyond. But the liability under FLSA can be too great (as xyzzy123) alluded.

That has got to be one of the greatest double-speak coups.  It really means right-t0-be-fired.

In reality, I had spurned this creepy man’s romantic overtures for years, and he was out for revenge. The whole company had recently been through harassment awareness training as required by California law, and he obviously took careful notes.

Why didn’t I report him first? I didn’t want to risk retaliation, or collateral damage — someone who means a great deal to me was also working for the same company and would have been dragged into any scandal by the company’s dysfunctional management. It’s the same reason I chose not to fight it after I was terminated. It’s also tough to get hired when a check of public records shows a history of suing previous employers.

If creepy, paranoid conspiracy nut former co-worker is reading this, it’s a shame about that limp weenie of yours, which one of your former girlfriends told me about over drinks not long ago, not to mention the son you rejected when you found out he was gay, and the wife who drank herself to death. For people like you, revenge is redundant. May you be haunted by loneliness, nightmares, and disease for this life and the eternity you have created for yourself. And by that ridiculous and pathetic personal ad you posted on (mercifully redacted dating site).

Good on her for forcing the sorry-ass company to pay up. Furthermore, her persistence and victory should make her a role model for any other hard workers out there who get shafted by their crappy employers. There IS recourse to the law. You do not have to simply lie down and let them use you up.

Genuinely interest, can you suffer a stroke due to stress? If so I wasn’t aware of this.

Stress >>> high blood pressure >>> stroke. Is that really arcane?

Why would someone who worked at a very stressful job NOT take an assigned break?

Only someone who’s never had a very stressful job would ask that. The answer is that you come back from your break with twice the work waiting for you and everybody standing around asking why it isn’t done yet.

This is not the question you should be asking.

I well understand the circumstances that produced this absurdity, and why you are able to find a chain of justification for it. But here’s one for you: why do you assume that “workers” need to be coerced at all?

If you skip your lunch, most people (sensible people) will try to leave an hour early ‘Taking their lunch very late’.

Thus when the boss wants to pin something on you at 5:00, your gone.

Its all stupid power trips.

(Disclosure: I am not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV.)

If she were being denied benefits for a legit reason, the company wouldn’t have presented such weak sauce as they did.  It wouldn’t have been news because there would have been an actual record with her TEN YEARS with the company that showed she deserved to be fired.  Not the four minute meeting with HR that got her fired.