[briansmith]

Hours and wages are negotiated between the employee and the employer.

Everybody should know how many hours a week they are expected to work and/or be on call before they start. And, you can ask for that in writing. If you ask them "how many hours a week am I expected to work" and they say "40", but they fire you for working less than 60, then the company defrauded you. But, if they say "60" and they fire you for working less than 60 then you only have yourself to blame.

If you have a written statement about the hours you are required to work or be on call, you can pretty much never be fired for failure to work more without compensation. Get it in writing.

[helveticaman]

What if they fire you for some shitty pretext?

[briansmith]

Let's say your employer lied to you in the interview, then fired you because you stuck to the original agreement. Then they lied about the reason they fired you so that you will have a difficult time getting unemployment benefits and you will have no reference to use for future interviews. What should you do?

A lawyer will be able to give you much better advise than I can. My guess is that your lawyer will help you get a nice little severance package and help ensure that your lying, cheating employer provides you with a solid reference to help you attain future employment.

I am not saying that you should get a lawyer so that you can sue them; I am just saying that a lawyer will be very helpful to understand the situation and for negotiating the terms of your departure. A lawyer's stationary is a very valuable negotiation tool.

Obviously, you should never sign anything or agree to anything, without your lawyer's advice. I think such a sneaky employer might try to trick you into signing away your rights immediately when they fire you. But, if you refuse to sign, what are they going to do? Fire you again?

[Tamerlin]

Federal regulations already set that constraint no matter what the hiring manager says.

[briansmith]

The federal regulations regarding overtime are very easy to work around. Regardless, it is always a better idea to agree to explicitly agree to terms up front instead of implicitly relying on what the law says; the law is a means of last resort.

Plus, for the right amount of money, a lot of people will be happy to ignore the federal regulations. I would take $10K a week for 80 hour weeks, for example.