25 signatures reached
To: President Donald Trump, The Texas State House, The Texas State Senate, Governor Greg Abbott, The United States House of Representatives, and The United States Senate
STOP Unreasonably Long Work Hours & Mittigate Non Paid Overtime Hours with Compensation
America has lost it's way within a mire of greed and 'getting the milk for free' mentality. Where once Corporate America provided pensions, raises, security, loyalty and respect toward its employees, more recent times have witnessed Corporate America taking advantage of exempt employees, by not providing time off, over working its labor force and unreasonably taking up individuals personal time. This serious issue has cost families time with loved ones, created in part a healthcare crisis, shortens our life, creates a more stressful life and goes entirely against what America has espoused with our founding fathers declaration of rights to the preservation of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness which is ostensibly protected. Our founding fathers would turn over in their graves and run to Europe for some much needed time off! Corporate America should be held accountable to respect and honor the unalienable rights we all have to a true work life balance with an average work week not being more than 40 hours. There should be penalties for non compliance. We should all re-balance so that we work to live rather than live to work! We teach others daily what is acceptable treatment by what we allow. En masse, all of us worker bees must embrace and take up our own power and cease giving our personal time away. This would be any work day beyond 6-8 hours or workweeks that do not average out to a 40 hour work week over a 12 month period. When we all begin to police this, there will be no stopping this wave of change! However many years you have to live, let it be in balance with enjoying what you do for a living and your personal pursuits which bring joy to life. Don't allow an unfeeling greedy corporate entity to watch over your best interest, it is incapable of that. It is incumbent upon you to manage yourself and call it when enough is enough!
Why is this important?
Hourly employees are protected by law and paid overtime hours if they work longer than 40 hours per week. We need a similar protection in place for exempt employees who many times are pulled in to work 16 hour days non stop because the company doesn't want to hire and pay for the hourly paid help, when they can get the work done 'for free'. This can end up in loss of family, shortened or loss of life, lawsuits clogging the system. Simply put, people who work very hard at what they do, deserve to have time away from work to pursue their own life outside of work, to have regular planned absences from work, vacation time, at least one day off each week as well as compensation for the 'me time' hours given.