Comment Re:What choice do we have? (Score 1) 710
Most of all of this is entirely workers driven. It's not blaming the workers per se, except maybe blaming workers for not suing employers when they break the law.
Yeah, that's the problem. If you confront them at hire time, you won't get hired, so instead you end up working 50+ hour weeks, keeping secretive timecards, then trying to sue after you leave. If you succeed, you get a lump sum that puts you into a higher tax bracket that year, meaning you've lost more of it to taxes. If you fail, you get nothing and maybe have to pay lawyers for their time. Either way, you've now damaged relations with your new employer by taking time off during your first month of employment and eliminated any chance of reemployment with your old employer.
The real solution is specific plain-English rules sent to every employer by the labor board about who is really exempt and who isn't, followed by regular audits and massive fines for non-compliance.