Imagine working at a company as an hourly employee, but then you’re given a raise and told you’re now a salary employee. If you were also told that meant you no longer got paid overtime, would you take the higher ups at their word, or would you do your own research?

In this story, one man knows the local laws better than his bosses, and he used that knowledge to get his way and prove a point that ends up helping out the other employees in the end.

Let’s read all about it.

Overtime. That’s Right, Overtime.

My cousin worked at an injection molding company as a machine operator, and one of his colleagues was named Danny.

He was a runner. He would show up early and start up the machines before day shift arrived, he would make sure that each machine had enough raw materials and boxes for the completed products, that sort of thing.

He would pull the full skids of completed product and take them to the warehouse and wrap the skids for shipments. He’d load the trucks, and accept the deliveries of raw materials.

He knew everyone on the factory floor and was pretty much a pivot man for the operation.

Danny made the company an offer.

Let’s call the company CanCo, since it was located in Ontario, Canada. They got bought out by an American company, AmCo, and AmCo sent up a new guy to be Facility Manager.

Before they got bought out in 2019, CanCo was struggling.

Danny was an arrive early/stay late kind of guy, so he offered to bank his overtime and CanCo accepted. He got it in writing.

At the end of 2019, he asked to be paid out for his accumulated overtime, which was substantial.

Danny continued to keep track of his overtime.

In January 2020, the Facility Manager called him into the office, and offered him a $6K annual bump in pay and increased benefits if he accepted a salaried position for 44 hours a week.

Danny took it.

As 2020 went on, Danny was working lots of hours, and submitted an Excel sheet every week with the hours he’d actually worked. There was a column that showed “hours in excess” where he entered the hours in excess of 44 for the week.

In the autumn of 2020, Danny approached the Facility Manager, and asked if he wanted Danny to take his accumulated overtime as time off, or to be paid out. The AmCo company handbook stated that all PTO needed to be used up by the end of the year, or it would be lost.

Danny knew something the Facility Manager didn’t.

The Facility Manager chuckled, and replied, “You’re salary. You don’t get overtime. That’s why I put you on salary.”

“That’s not right, Boss. I get overtime after 44 hours.”

“No, you don’t. That’s AmCo company policy.”

“Yes, I do. That’s Ontario Labour Law.” Danny handed him a printout of the relevant page from the Ontario Government website.

The situation was not easily resolved.

The Facility Manager said he would look into it, but didn’t.

Danny pestered him, and finally, fed up, he fired off an email to the Facility Manager, the Plant Manager, CanCo HR….and AmCo HR as well.

Eventually he got called into a meeting with the Plant Manager, the Facility Manager, and HR.

You should understand that HR was a bit of a jerk, nobody really liked her, but she was a blabbermouth.

Danny asked a few key questions.

The company tried everything to get out of paying the overtime.

Danny asked, “Do I have the authority to enter into contracts on behalf of the company?”

“No.”

“Do I have the authority to assign work to my colleagues, or discipline them?”

“No.”

Danny was smart to get everything in writing.

“Then I am not a Manager or a Supervisor, and under Ontario Labour law these are the only people exempt from overtime. Oh, and see that total? You can multiply that by 1.5, so for every hour overtime I worked, you either pay me an hour and a half, or give me an hour and a half off, with pay.”

After the meeting, the Facility Manager was furious. His little scheme to get free work out of Danny didn’t play, and now he looked really bad in front of his boss.

“Danny, beginning right now, you don’t work another minute of overtime without my permission, you got that?”

“Okay,” Danny replied. “Let me put that in an email.” He did, and the FM confirmed it in a reply.

Complying backfired for the company almost immediately.

Danny was arriving at 5:30am, more than an hour ahead of the Production team, in order to unlock the doors, turn on the lights, and warm up the machines. These machines melt little beads of plastic and squirt them into molds, so they take about 45 minutes to an hour to warm up.

So the next day, at 2:30, Danny left, and shut off his phone.

There was an afternoon shift that started at 3pm, and a meeting with the day shift foremen, the afternoon shift foremen, the FM and Danny, and there was a discussion of any issues and production targets for the shift.

Since Danny wasn’t there, and he had the tally sheets, the afternoon shift had no idea what they were expected to produce for the shift.

Danny was questioned about why he wasn’t at the meeting.

The next day, Danny came in early as usual, and when the FM arrived, he demanded to know why Danny didn’t attend the meeting.

Danny explained that his shift was over, and he went home since he wasn’t allowed overtime. That’s why he shut off his phone, too, he can’t do company work on his off hours, that’s overtime.

The FM said that Danny’s attendance at the meeting was mandatory, so Danny suggested that the only way for that to happen would be to adjust his working hours.

The FM then changed his hours to 8am-4:30pm, effective immediately, and put it in an email, at Danny’s insistence.

Complying again backfired almost immediately.

Later that day, there was a delivery that arrived at 3pm, and Danny wasn’t there to unload it, so they had to turn it away and have them return in the morning.

The next day, Danny arrives at 8am, as instructed, only to be met by a furious Day Shift Foreman.

When the Foreman arrived, the entire production staff was in the parking lot as the doors were locked. He opened up, let them in, and then had to wait around for almost an hour, producing nothing, as the heating coils on the machines came up to temperature.

The FM arrived in the middle of this bollocking, and Danny simply pointed at him and said, “He changed my hours to an 8am start, didn’t he tell you?” This turned the wrath onto the FM, who now had to take responsibility for a 12-15% drop in production for the day.

Her being a blabbermouth really helped the other employees out.

There were also occasional Saturdays when the company fell behind, only Danny wouldn’t be there to bring the machines raw materials, or take away finished product. That would turn into a problem, too.

So the FM gave in, and gave Danny blanket authorization to work any overtime required.

The raise he got to bump to salary ended up boosting his pay by $2.75/hr, but the only downside was that Danny couldn’t bank it, it was paid out each cheque.

The kicker? Remember the blabbermouth from HR?

Somehow, and nobody knows exactly how, word got around the office that ANYONE who wasn’t a manager was entitled to OT, and they all started submitting time sheets that included it.

Danny was smart to know the law and not to just take the higher ups at their word. That worked out really well for not just him but for other employees on salary who didn’t know the law as well as he did.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

Apparently, a lot of Americans don’t know the law either.

Another person shares a story about their coworker.

Here’s the perspective of another person who lives in Ontario.

It’s important to know the law.