Do Video editors qualifiy for the “creative professional” overtime-exemption?

[Tony Guliani]

[Todd Terry] “My guess is that anyone smarmy enough not to pay overtime is not going to be jumping up and down raising their hand. And I think most of us in here do pay OT. As it should be. Sunshine nor roses notwithstanding.”

Well said, Todd. Well said. Selective bias at work.

[Mark Suszko]

I don’t pay it, but I get it. I’m covered under the AFSCME union rules as a civil servant. As far as qualifications for the FLSA exemption, unless you have a J.D. hanging on the wall behind you, as well as a background in Labor regulation, I’m not going to just accept anybody’s say-so at face value. Even then, based on the specific situation, the expert could be wrong. Stakes are too high. OT can be more than a quarter of my take-home in a busy month. Of course, if we weren’t understaffed, there might be somewhat less OT happening. You pay it on one end or the other, eventually. I don’t go out of my way to generate the OT, and believe me, I’d rather be spending that time at home with my wife and kids and etc. instead of taking the extra money. And in fact I have the option, which I normally take, of taking “compensatory time” or “comp time” for the OT instead of cash. Comp time works like free personal days, and you can apply it to vacations or anything you want; that’s handy for things like taking a couple hours out of a day to attend the kid’s school recital, or handle some heavy household errands, or anything of that nature, it’s up to me. Comp time has to be burned before personal or vacation time, but any that’s left over, gets converted to cash at the end of the fiscal. One year I had racked up enough OT as comp that when the unused portion of it was cashed-out, it paid for my wife’s engagement ring. Sort of like a second tax refund in late summer. OT is what you pay me to voluntarily give up some of my personal life and family responsibilities, and to go beyond what’s normally expected, to suit your time-critical need. I come thru; you pay me for it. Fair’s fair.

[Chris Blair]

I think most good business owners understand that paying people for the work they do, and especially compensating them (with pay or time off) when they go above and beyond their normal work hours, is the way to run your business. It’s how we’ve done it for 14 years.

Certainly there are scads of dickweeds out there that will take advantage of every loophole and every opportunity available (especially the ones veiled in legalese) to AVOID paying people. Some of those dickweeds actually end up running extremely profitable businesses. I’ve worked for some of these people and companies and can say first-hand they are usually downright toxic environments…with most people continually plotting their get-a-way or their payback to the boss or company. It often catches up with the business or owner (although some people run businesses like that their entire lives!).

In my book, success in business is more than just stuffing your pockets with as much cash as you can and taking advantage of the people who help you. But that’s just me.

Chris Blair
Magnetic Image, Inc.
Evansville, IN
http://www.videomi.com
Read our blog http://www.videomi.com/blog

[Mark Raudonis]

I think we’re back to defining what “kind” of editor we’re
Talking about. If I’m NOT dictating hours and the editor is setting
Their own work hours then how can you justify OT?

[Grinner Hester]

All of us do. It’s not about legalities. Ya get what ya pay for. It’s important to keep creatives happy. A fella can dig a ditch and be mad about it. One can’t make good art when not motivated. Don’t pay OT and you’ll see em split after their shift is done.
…or half ass it while cussing you.

[Bill Davis]

If you’re running a traditional “time clock” shop – well – all power to you.

I’ve simply never been able to do that. I still believe that tracking hours is a poor way to run a creative business. I guess that’s why I’m not in commercials space any longer. I don’t want to keep having to bill more hours just to make a landlord rich. I also don’t carry traditional employees any more. I pay for professional help. And I pay them their full card rates. There’s hardly ever OT in question because virtually EVERY shoot I do involves OT and it’s built into the rate.. Everyone who works on my shoots expects to be paid for a 10 hour stretch even if the shoot is done in 7. To me, that’s how you attract and keep the best crews.

As I’ve always said. when you base money on time, you reward the mediocre and slow and penalize the smart and fast.

Pay them for 10 hours – and don’t penalize them if they get it done in 7 – and the result is that the men and women who are both good and fast will pick your gig over one run by the guy who sends half the crew home at 3pm and then makes everyone else work harder, just to keep the OT column under control.

Different strokes – as they say.

[Grinner Hester]

Slow editors are unemployed editors.