Imagine working for a company where you’re told overtime is mandatory. Would you be happy to work longer days in exchange for extra money, or would you prefer a 40 hour work week and more free time?

In this story, one manufacturing employee explains that overtime is not optional, and he’s pretty upset about it.

Let’s see why he would prefer a 40 hour work week.

How is forced overtime not against the law in the US?

I work in manufacturing.

It’s a hard, hot, manual labor job that we work in 12 hour shifts.

We have a short week “36 hours”, and a long week “48 hours,” but due to being understaffed our supervisors and management give us mandatory overtime.

This sounds awful!

So here I am working five to six 12 hour shifts a week.

Every week.

I’m always sore, and grumpy.

My family never sees me.

He’s sick of this overtime.

But hey we had a record breaking year last year!

We literally hit 200% of what was expected from our facility!

So yea. What happened to the 40 hour work week?

Labor laws and such… we tried to unionize a few years ago, but it didn’t get voted in thanks to a impressive anti-union campaign through the company.

It sounds like he needs to look for a different job or at least cash in some vacation time.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

One person explains why companies like overtime.

Another person makes a good point.

This person is happy to be in a union.

Another person got burnt out from too much mandatory overtime.

This person is about to be in a similar situation.

Overtime should be optional.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.