Unpaid, off the clock rework

Hello Forum,
I am in a bit of a pickle. I am a setup machinist working at a small job shop in California. I am involved in a hot project and it's become the worst nightmare.
The situation in a nutshell is I produced bad parts and now I am being asked to work off the clock to replace them.
I worked 6 hours today free, and I suspect that I am going to be expected to continue next week until all the parts are good.
Thing is I am working with unfamiliar material (molybdenum tzm) and the programmer/ foreman and inspector both are over seeing my work and buying it off.
What would you do?

Two words: fuck that.

Don't work another second for free. Demand to be paid for any time you have already worked, including overtime if you would normally have overtime. If anyone gives you shit, call the labor bureau for your state. Any employer is required to pay for all hours worked. No exceptions.

Everybody screws up once in a while. It's part of doing business. The company owners assume all risk for the work of their employees. No exceptions.

I recently saw an add for concrete truck drivers. They require one week of unpaid training. That's so illegal it makes my head spin.

I once worked for a large company who required employees to wear uniforms. You could not wear your uniform outside of the workplace. They required you to change clothes and then clock in. Reverse at the end of the day. They received a huge fine and were forced to compensate all employees going back 10 years for any time spent changing clothes. They were forced to let you clock in and then change.

Get the parts done, then figure out who is at fault.

Were you negligent in your work ?

If you are an hourly empoyee, it's illegal under the labor code anywhere to ask (force) you to work for nothing for even one hour. That's a separate issue from who was responsible for the incorrect parts.

I've reworked the odd project for free as a point of pride.
You pay for top work you get top work was my moto.
(If that was smart or not is another questions)

But to be told to re work for free? Absolutely not. That is the owners risk he takes in business.

If you legitimately f'd up so stupidly and yo want to correct your mistake. Good on you sir.
If you where asked to work out of your scope of knowledge. That's the risk they took.
The owner needs to evaluate and decide if you are an asset or liability and take action, not demand free work.

TGA-Bucko said:

Hello Forum,
I am in a bit of a pickle. I am a setup machinist working at a small job shop in California. I am involved in a hot project and it's become the worst nightmare.
The situation in a nutshell is I produced bad parts and now I am being asked to work off the clock to replace them.
I worked 6 hours today free, and I suspect that I am going to be expected to continue next week until all the parts are good.
Thing is I am working with unfamiliar material (molybdenum tzm) and the programmer/ foreman and inspector both are over seeing my work and buying it off.
What would you do?

Click to expand...

How much do they pay an hour?

We've only read one side of this saga.

If you were the owner, and the above poster really messed
up, what would you do ?

Even if the Op is re-working the parts on their own time, how
about the cost of the material ?

How about the shop cost's ? (machine & tool wear, electricity, etc.)

Makes no difference. As an employer, your choices are to fire the guy or pay him to do the job over. That's it.

As a shop owner I have had guys screw up and its just part of the job ,,, I would not even think about asking then to work free...

We've already covered how bad it is for the employer to ask you to work for free, but the employer is also missing another point too.

IF you have any pride in your work at all (let's assume you do, since you went through the trouble to post on here about your mistake) he's missing the extra guilt as well... When an employee screws up and gets asked to fix it for free, that's going to do nothing but breed bitterness within the employee. If they have any pride in their work at all, then the boss can use the old "Now I have to pay you more money to fix this mistake. Let's make sure that doesn't happen again..." line. The always instilled a [healthy] guilt within me for making such an [expensive] mistake, and was motivation for me to pay attention, and do a better job the next time.

Your boss sounds like a scumbag.

I'd spend my "FREE" working time walking every piece of value out of that shop and putting
it in my truck.. Then I would go and do an MDI G0 Z-100000000 on every machine in the shop,
and then go home.

I'm a shop owner, and I have wanted to KILL an employee for stupid shit... That was a $165
hit because you didn't actually tighten the vise... BREATHE DEEP... BREATHE DEEP.. Its
part of the deal.. I would NEVER EVER expect somebody to work for free... EVER!!!



Obviously you aren't happy with the situation..

I wouldn't be.. I would NEVER EVER in my wildest dreams expect somebody to work for free for me.

Get hurt... See what happens then..... "Your Honor, I was being FORCED to work for FREE"


I live my life by one simple rule that my Dad taught me...

You never fuck anybody, ever.. but if they blatantly fuck you first... Its GAME ON!!!!!!

If you're asked to share in the risks of shop ownership, you also need to share in the rewards. Not just keeping your job, but profit.

Also, it seems we let you down here:
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/vb/cnc-machining/turning-molybdenum-type-361-problems-348877/

Oops. But, if there's a programmer (who is not you) then why are you on the hook for running his program? The fact that you can re-work the parts -- does that mean he forgot a feature?

Be mindful of the permanency of the interwebs with regard to the details you do or don't include in your answer.

Un-obfuscated: Don't answer with specific details if it means your employer can find you here...

there have been plenty of times when I wished I could have made an employee fix his screw-up on his own time. Unfortunately I always end up spending either my money to have him do the job again, or my time to do the job again myself. For the employer, it’s a really shitty deal. The job ends up costing you triple. The time and materials to do it wrong the first time, plus the time and materials to do it again, plus the lost earnings on another job that should have been done while you are fixing what you screwed up on the last job.

Ca is tight with labor code so just visit the labor office and make a complaint. Single page.

Labor code is simple...as we were asking many questions about odd things the agent said a simple statement to live by.

"Anytime you do anything that benefits your employer in anyway you are on the clock...period"
O

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Tony Quiring said:

Ca is tight with labor code so just visit the labor office and make a complaint. Single page.

Labor code is simple...as we were asking many questions about odd things the agent said a simple statement to live by.

"Anytime you do anything that benefits your employer in anyway you are on the clock...period"
O

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I337Z using Tapatalk

Click to expand...

So, does that mean when an employee makes a real clusterf**k out of a job, he isn’t technically “on the clock”?

I'm not sure we have the whole story here. What are the employment circumstances the OP was working under? Is the OP an employee? Perhaps a contractor of some sort?

digger doug said:

We've only read one side of this saga.

If you were the owner, and the above poster really messed
up, what would you do ?
....

Click to expand...

That's a easy one, eat the payroll even if OT.

A) It's called investing in your employee, call it training or whatever.
B) If the employee is working "off the clock" and injures himself you will have massive problems.
C) I know of nowhere in the US where this is legal.
D) We all make mistakes, learn from them and it should be excepted. All to often the boss looks at the bottom line and forgets this expecting perfection that no person can ever achieve.
Hindsight is always 20-20 and no one should be judged by this standard.

I have made my own fair share of scrap, some of it careless and serious cash so I won't throw the first stone.
Certainly I have let people know that I'm very unhappy about the situation. I've learned that it's best for me to "cool off" for 24 hours before addressing the guy/gal.
Some have volunteered to resign after a big oops.
My response "Not a chance, look how much I have just spent on teaching you how not to do it".

When you take on employees you take on the responsibility to make sure they do it right. You make the big bucks, it's your job to make sure things go smoothly.
Yes, for sure there are workers that you have to discipline or just plain get rid of but IMO this posted solution is not right on many levels.

If my people fail, I have failed to do my job somewhere and no way I expect them to work for free for my shortcomings no matter how pissed off I may be.
My knee-jerk response is to make them feel some of my pain with something like posted and as a snot-nose kid foreman would maybe have done so.

There is the whole pride in workmanship thing for the OP to consider and for me a deep want to do it for free but you should not be allowed to.
Be aware that for some here posting this reads a bit between the lines.

Sounds like you got in over your head, fucked up and did not ask for or receive the help you needed.
Your boss did not realize or grasp that he/she was asking you to do more than you knew how to and fucked up.
Plenty of blame to pass around but this "blame game" never helps, just makes one person or another feel good.
I have had to step on this more than once.
Gather the team and "Sit down, shut up, park your egos, pride, hurt feelings and differences at the door, we have a problem to solve".

I would pay you without hesitation and question why anyone would not. You would know I was not a happy camper doing so.
Bob

TGA-Bucko said:

Hello Forum,
I am in a bit of a pickle. I am a setup machinist working at a small job shop in California. I am involved in a hot project and it's become the worst nightmare.
The situation in a nutshell is I produced bad parts and now I am being asked to work off the clock to replace them.
I worked 6 hours today free, and I suspect that I am going to be expected to continue next week until all the parts are good.
Thing is I am working with unfamiliar material (molybdenum tzm) and the programmer/ foreman and inspector both are over seeing my work and buying it off.
What would you do?

Click to expand...

If you are working off the clock on the demand of your employer, then you have a boss with no morals or understanding of the risk he's putting himself under. If (as you describe) your work WAS SIGNED OFF by the "programmer/ foreman and inspector", they're culpable too. If the material failed as described in your first post that Chip Chester noticed, then it's the supplier's responsibility too (unless you were blatantly abusing the drilling process with a dull drill or running in reverse).

Whatever you do, don't work for free, it's not legal and not moral, especially if you're being accurate in your two posts. But you may have to lawyer-up to recover from this situation, as well as have to find work elsewhere. Sometimes life hands you shit on a stick, be the guy who grabs it at the dry end.

Easy to have lots of opinions when it’s not you in the OPs position. Right or wrong, legal or not, he has to do what works for him. Is it a good job? Does he like the job? Is he thinking about leaving anyway? Doesn’t sound like he gets treated right, but hard to say.

Unless it’s a Union shop or it’s a big shop with lots of complaints ,he’s got to walk a fine line between putting food on the table and not getting taking advantage of., he can file a complaint , but the owner will just find another reason to get rid of him if it results in grief, and if it upsets the applecart, it could effect the whole shop, which will piss his peers off.

I certainly don’t think he should be working for free, and if two other people bought off on them, I can’t see where you are 100% responsible anyway, but lots we “internet lawyers” don’t know.

Digger had some sound advice, wait until you are calm and sit down with the boss and the other two folks that bought off on the parts and chat


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I'd like to know the whole story before passing judgement on anyone. It's been asked a few times but we still don't know the root cause of the mistake and its contributing factors. Having this information would lead to a better verdict, not to mention how to best prevent it in the future.