I have been a hourly worker, rather than salaried, as a network admin before. To make it more complex my yearly pay was worked out and then it was divided down to provide an hourly rate. I didn't actually want that situation, but the company did because hourly employees got different considerations for things like days the place was not open. See salaried workers got paid for all days the place wasn't open (usually around 21 per year, or three weeks worth), while hourly had to use their own vacation time for them. That meant hourly workers had to give up large chunks of pay during times the place was shut down if they wanted to take vacation outside of those time periods.
The opposite end of that is that I was not allowed to work over even a minute... At least and claim it. They loved to try to get me to stay extra and just not pay me for it. Which is pretty much like what went in in the article in effect.