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US labor laws are very weak. It's part of this whole "pull yourself up by your own bootstraps" culture. >>
>>I think that's very open to debate. Between specific labor laws, and certain acts that make after-the-fact remedies possible, there are over 200 laws/acts on the books. Keep in mind that categories such as FMLA laws are under the heading of labor laws.
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>>As for salaried employees, certainly most of the time they don't get OT - however, there are exemption status tests that make it possible in some cases. (I actually was in one, back in 1994, though in retrospect it was a bad scenario)
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>Your memories are working their way toward the present one year at a time ;-)
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>I have to disagree with Tamar in this case, which is a rarity, when she calls U.S. labor laws weak. In fact they were a model of labor laws around the world. In the bad old days employers could demand about anything of their workers. Very long hours, children working in sweatshops, no sick leave, no disability compensation, on and on. I do not by any means defend all the practices of labor unions but they came about for a reason.
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>I'm sure I have told this story before. My grandfather had a good job, a construction foreman, when he was permanently disabled. He stepped on a plank that had not been properly secured and fell 30 feet, landing on his head. He was in a coma for over a month and it was not certain that he would survive. He did, but in a diminished state. He had brain damage and never worked again. It's even sadder in a way that he wasn't a vegetable; he knew what he had lost. He was a proud man and it devastated him. It was only a week later that worker protection laws were enacted. All he got was about $500 in cash that had been passed around among the crew. Was that the sign of a civilized society? More Darwinian IMO.
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>Now I'm waiting to see who is the first to call me a socialist ;-)
We may have been among the first to pass labor laws, but then we stalled. I think you're so used to the American way that you don't realize what we don't have. Check out this chart about mandated leave by country:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_countryThe US is the only one with none. How about maternity/paternity leave:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leaveI don't have time to go digging for other stuff, but the world has passed us by in this regard.
Tamar
