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Elna Tymes wrote:
>I've never heard of a contract for technical writing that paid overtime.
My
experience has been that 40 hrs/week is what's expected, although there may
be
more or less at times. The client may actually want more hours from a
contractor, especially in the view of some that contractors are there only
for special
purposes and that >40 hrs/wk is part of the game for them.<
Well, at my last contract I did work overtime hours for time and a half pay.
I believe that Minnesota's legislature gives an hourly cap to time and a
half: if you make below approximatley $25/hour, you must be paid time and a
half for overtime; if you make above that, it's up to your employer. I had
to get approval from the client to work the overtime, and it took a lot of
fighting to get the approval, primarily because the client didn't want to
cough up the money to pay me time and a half. And now, getting the contract
house to actually *pay* me the time and a half has turned into a month-long
battle which is probably shortly going to involve legal threats, but that's
another story.
Anyway, it looks like the policy and laws on this vary from state to state,
so you should probably check your state's laws and find out what applies to
you.