[bryanrasmussen]

thinking about this I can think of one situation where it would make sense, since the company doing this would be coming from a position of weakness (if strong you just demand people work however long you like) but if weak it would imply they wouldn't try it, perhaps they were not very long ago strong.

If for example they were able to demand longer hours worked, and then regulations were enacted and they could not do that, making them weak where they were previously strong, they might react by trying to sneakily get what they see as their rights.

All that said, still very unlikely scenario, and still needs more than ooh I read a story, it needs town name, company name years it happened and a place to look up the data for a claim so unlikely and conspiratorial.