Imagine working for a company where some people are needed to work overtime on the weekend but not everyone is needed. What would be the fair way of offering overtime to the employees?

In this story, one company decided to offer overtime based on seniority and work their way down the list until enough people volunteered to work overtime. The problem was that there was more than one shift. There was the day shift and the evening shift, and a couple guys who worked on the evening shift were upset that they were never offered the chance to work overtime since the day shift usually filled all the spots.

They complained so much about it and even wanted compensation, that a huge change was made to their schedule that they didn’t like at all. Unfortunately, complaining wouldn’t help this time.

Keep reading for the whole story.

Union Overtime

I worked in a factory on afternoon shift, 3pm – 11pm.

In another department were 2 lazy guys. Their department was pretty much fully staffed, and their job was basically to clean the department, make sure raw materials were available for the next day, that sort of thing.

On Fridays, the Day Shift were often asked to work overtime on Saturdays, starting with the most senior employees and working down the list.

These 2 guys were never asked, usually because by the time they arrived for their Friday evening shift, there were enough Day Shift volunteers to cover what was needed.

I can’t believe they got away with this!

They discovered that some of the Day Shift volunteers had less seniority than they did, so they kept their mouths shut, and for months they recorded each Saturday that a less senior employee worked.

Then they filed a grievance, stating that they missed out on the overtime because they weren’t asked, and should be compensated for all those Saturdays.

The company said “Okay”, then cited a clause in the contract that said they were liable for only 30 calendar days, as it was the employees responsibility to bring any wage errors to the company in a timely manner.

In that past month there was one Saturday that a less senior employee worked a Saturday, so they paid each of these guys a day’s worth of OT.

This really messed up their schedule.

Then the company transferred these guys back to Day Shift.

They objected to the transfer and lost, as it was iron-clad in the contract that the company has the right to assign employees where they were needed.

Both had pre-school kids, and both had wives that worked days. Dad would watch the kids while Mom was at work, then a babysitter or family member would come in and watch them for a couple hours between when Dad left for work and Mom returned home.

It didn’t work out well for them at all.

Not any more.

They had to arrange daycare for the full day at considerable expense, Mom had to leave early to drop off the kids, and Dad had to pick them up on the way home.

But they did manage to profit that single day’s worth of overtime.

I bet those guys wish they had never complained.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who thwarted an attorney’s request by faxing him the same pages all day long.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

All they had to do was appreciate what they had.

Here’s another story about missing out on overtime.

A union member weighs in.

Another union member share their experience.

I assume the lazy guys didn’t actually want to work overtime. They were just trying to claim they wanted to work overtime to get paid for work they didn’t actually do.

They clearly didn’t think out their plan very well. If they had never complained, nothing would’ve changed. Sure, it probably never occurred to them that they’d be switched to the day shift, but they were trying to scam the system. They got what they deserved.