My good friend Krupo regaled me with the latest twist in the KPMG Canadian overtime law suit. You can’t make this up:
If you were an administrative staff person supposed to work 40 hours a week, no more, no less, the letter will indicate some dollar figure, your share of the almost $10 million settlement.
Intriguingly, you’ll get that letter even if you weren’t an administrative person – that is, a young CA student or similar ‘overtime exempt’ professional employee.
And what will the letter will tell you?
It will say that your share of the settlement is zero dollars.
Wow.
Thanks for your service, this doesn’t apply to you, have a nice day.
Canadian labour laws prohibit the paying of overtime to ‘overtime exempt’ professionals – which includes audit staff. Yet from what Krupo tells me, it’s a standing joke that the investment banking community laughs at the 70-90 hours per week that accounting professionals regularly pull to satisfy their bosses.
In theory, Canada could easily be used as a professional sweat shop for routine work coming in from overseas. I doubt even KPMG has thought of that wheeze so I’d best stop before they get ideas.
