« Nussim Presents Distributive Aspects of Legal Standards Today at Loyola-L.A | Main | Johnston: Taxes, Dividends, and Patriotism »
November 18, 2008
Does Your Boss Have to Pay You While You Wait for Vista to Boot Up?
National Law Journal: Is Booting Up a Computer Work, or a Work Break? More Companies Fending Off Suits on the Issue, by Tresa Baldas:
Lawyers are noting a new type of lawsuit, in which employees are suing over time spent booting [up] their computers. ... During the past year, several companies, including AT&T Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp., have been hit with lawsuits in which employees claimed that they were not paid for the 15- to 30-minute task of booting their computers at the start of each day and logging out at the end. Add those minutes up over a week, and hourly employees are losing some serious pay, argues plaintiffs' lawyer Mark Thierman, a Las Vegas solo practitioner who has filed a handful of computer-booting lawsuits in recent years. ...
Management-side attorney Richard Rosenblatt, a partner in the Princeton, N.J., office of Morgan, Lewis & Bockius who is defending a half-dozen employers in computer-booting lawsuits, ... believes that, in most cases, computer booting does not warrant being called work. Having spent time in call centers observing work behaviors, he said most employees boot the computer, then engage in nonwork activities. "They go have a smoke, talk to friends, get coffee — they're not working, and all they've done at that point is press a button to power up their computer, or enter in a key word," Rosenblatt said.
November 18, 2008 in News | Permalink
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c4eab53ef010535fe4194970c
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Does Your Boss Have to Pay You While You Wait for Vista to Boot Up?:
» A question for the ages from dustbury.com
Does your boss have to pay you while you wait for Vista to boot up?
Apparently this has become an issue:
During the past year, several companies, including ATT Inc., UnitedHealth Group Inc. and Cigna Corp., have been hit with lawsuits in which e... [Read More]
Tracked on Nov 18, 2008 12:17:36 PM
Comments
Well, 15-30 mins huh? What type of machines are these guys using? I support a large IT group, and 15-30 mins would more than raise eyebrows. Even in 1985! In fact, more than about 5 mins would likely result in a helpdesk call by most any user, so I find it hard to believe that anyone is legitmately dealing with a 30 min boot time.
To the heart of the matter however, it is ludicrous for a company to take away time from employees for this. After all, this is an issue with company equipment and is beyond the control of the employee. If I worked there, I would insist my machine was booted before I walked in the door, or I be paid the time due to a slow booting machine. I don't work for free, nor should anyone else.
If there is a pattern of abuse as a result of this, that's another story, but this sounds to broad reaching to be the case. If it was only a few people, this story would not exist.
Thanks!
-Kevin
Posted by: Kevin Wililams | Nov 18, 2008 10:23:32 AM
Rosenblatt has it dead wrong; a person is performing a designated task at a designated space at a designated time that is work, not hard work perhaps but responsible work. This is why unions are formed to keep employers from chipping away at workers lives. Taken to a logical extrapolation an employer could pay a receptionist only for the time he/she is routing a phone call not the few minutes of "downtime" in between. Creative solutions could be used to solve this problem like on a rotating schedule pay one or two employees to turn on the equipment so that it is all up and running for the workday; but without collective barganing it is a great burden for a few employees to take on an employer in such matters especially if they don't expect some sort of retribution.
Posted by: tom hoser | Nov 18, 2008 10:39:13 AM
I worked in a center similar to this for a while. The problem we had was also similar. We were required to be at work, logged in, and ready to take the first call at 9 AM. This required us to be at our desk 5 minutes ahead of time to get the system up and logged in and get logged into our phones. The company did not consider this work time and did not pay for it, but it was required that we do it in order to perform our job. At the end of the day the process was reversed and we were considered off the clock when we logged out of our phone, which was the first thing we had to do to get out of the call queue, even though the PC closing process may take 5 minutes or so.
Posted by: RTFW | Nov 18, 2008 11:06:14 AM
Takes my computer about 10 minutes to boot-up, mostly because of the heavy duty security program updates that hog the processor.
Posted by: Rusty | Nov 18, 2008 11:08:30 AM
The obscenely long boot times are often the result of the additional software the company insists on loading -- keystroke trackers, virus filters, net nannies, etc. If they're going to insist on loading all those things, then they should pay for the extra time they're taking from the employees.
Posted by: Rob Crawford | Nov 18, 2008 11:12:24 AM
In response to Kevin -- I tend to have ten to fifteen minute 'boot' times, but I count the time it takes my Outlook to open and my virus scanner software to initialize and InDesign / Photoshop / Web Browsers to load. It only takes a few minutes to get to the Windows login screen, but it seriously takes four to eight minutes to get all my work programs open.
Posted by: Richard | Nov 18, 2008 11:12:51 AM
They should leave the computers powered on all of the time. At the end of the day reboot your computer and walk away. When you come in the next morning it will already be booted up and you just have to logon.
Posted by: Greg | Nov 18, 2008 11:16:34 AM
I have around 2100 PCs. About 400 are now on Vista. What I have found is that Vista boots faster than XP or 2000. Sounds like the company has a configuration issue. When I had 2000 I would turn on my PC and go to the breakroom to get water, come back, and then log in. Now by the time I get out of my chair and grab the water glass it is usually ready for me to log in.
Shutdown can be longer because it might be doing upgrades when shutdown is requested. With no upgrades it usually takes my PC less than 5 minutes to shutdown. Also I don't need to stay while the system shuts down.
This isn't a Vista problem. It is an IT problem being blamed on Vista.
Posted by: Ron W | Nov 18, 2008 11:21:47 AM
If they have to come to work early to boot up their program, they deserve to be paid!
I had to work at a call center, and it took 10 extra minutes of time a day to log in/log out which WAS unpaid, its nearly an hour of work a week...and I wasn't allowed to spend that time even having a snack.
Although strangely they let the fat folks eat whenever they wanted, fear of armed rebellion I suppose...should have sued for skinny people discrimination.
C
Posted by: Mama73 | Nov 18, 2008 11:23:54 AM
Collective bargaining? Really?
Here's a simple strategy that empowers people rather than politicians and union bosses. Assess your job. If you feel your total compensation is worthy of your work, keep your job. If it's not, renegotiate or go elsewhere.
You don't need a Bureau of Computer Turner Onners or union representation. You need to take control of your life.
Posted by: People not politicians | Nov 18, 2008 11:23:55 AM
15+ minute boot time is the norm for me, and I have a pretty fast laptop. The problem is that, as a developer, my laptop starts a great many resource consuming services at bootup such as databases (MySQL, MS SQL or whatever I am developing with at the time), local web servers (IIS, Tomcat or JBoss), voice recognition software and so on. More importantly, given the type of clients we have, strong anti-virus software is running the during the entire bootup process which bogs the system down further. If that weren't enough, strong disk encryption places an additional burden on boot time.
My long boot time is not a function of weakly powered hardware, but is a function of the tool load I carry as a functioning, multi-customer consultant and IT architect. That boot time is a cost of the work I do.
Posted by: Nicole Tedesco | Nov 18, 2008 11:24:09 AM
Okay, the question of pay for boot-up time may be an open issue, but the company still has to let me COBRA my health insurance when it expires while I'm waiting.
Posted by: Jerry Davis | Nov 18, 2008 11:28:31 AM
If you're at work, you should be getting paid. If your boss doesn't like paying you for computer booting time, the boss can let you come in 15 minutes late while he turns on the computers.
Posted by: Matt Springer | Nov 18, 2008 11:45:35 AM
The delay in booting isn't a Vista issue, but it CAN be a problem. From a cold start, it takes 12 minutes for my XP laptop - a new Dell D830! - to get to the Windows desktop. WITHOUT any hoggish software addons. Add another 5 to get to Outlook.
Posted by: Ken Mitchell | Nov 18, 2008 11:56:59 AM
I used to work for MBNA and they had a policy that you had to be there 15 minutes early, for this very reason. It really did take that long to turn on the computer, load all of the proprietary software and log into our phones. About a year after I quit, I got a letter in the mail telling me that a class action lawsuit was in process because of this. A few months later I got a check in the mail for 30 minutes of additional pay for each day that I worked for the duration of my employment (we had the same 15 minuite policy for logging out).
Posted by: Heidi | Nov 18, 2008 11:57:49 AM
Any IT person that cannot fathom a 15 to 30 minute boot time on Windows 2000, XP or Vista on an employees workstation has never worked for a large global corporation that is heavily regulated.
Posted by: Techie | Nov 18, 2008 11:58:51 AM
If the employer requires and supplies the computer to do the work, the employer should pay the employee while the system boots up. To blame the employee for getting a cup of coffee while the comptuer goes through the employer-controlled bootup is ludicrious.
If the employer is worried about down-time, they should allow the employee to keep the computer turned on 24/7.
Posted by: Cigar444 | Nov 18, 2008 12:00:55 PM
I dont see a lawsuit here. I worked in a NOC the company thought it would be a good idea to let customers talk to the techs yeah not a good idea it was like a call center when it shouldnt have been.....they required us to be at work at 655am and ready to work at 7am and not to log out until 3pm...Well we didnt get paid for the 5 mins so ALL of us decided not to show up until 7am and if we got there early we didnt log in to the machines until 7am. The company finally wised up they required us to be there 15 mins early but we ended up getting paid for it! The problem is you NEED EVERYONE at the location to do this if 2 or 3 people do it and cause a problem the company will just fire them and replace them in a couple weeks but they cant fire every employee!!!! The power is in the employee's hands all they have to do it take it!
Posted by: Luke | Nov 18, 2008 12:02:17 PM
sounds more Like a 2 gig User profile
Posted by: | Nov 18, 2008 12:03:15 PM
This reminds me of the famous story about Steve Jobs arguing that shaving seconds off of the boot time of the original Macintosh would save lives.
Posted by: Brian E | Nov 18, 2008 12:09:13 PM
It is exactly this money grubbing non human penny pinching that caused me to leave my job in the first place. Complete lack of human decency and respect is what I felt being shoved into a pod.
You say, 'don't collective bargain, leave'. But that's a crock. That is what a free market boss would want you to think. So then, they could hire less experienced workers who don't know any better and they get USED to being treated like crap and the collective labour force suffers.
Then people are just moving around , half asleep, constantly tired and unable to function.
Posted by: Neil | Nov 18, 2008 12:09:15 PM
I agree with tom above. As a programmer, Mr. Rosenblatt's argument strikes me as extremely weak. It could easily be argued that when I hit the "Compile" button on a large project, I'm taking a work break because my machine is doing all the work. Same thing when I rebuild a database for testing. This could be extended to any automated task.
If the computers really take 15 - 30 minutes to boot up (which I seriously doubt), the employer can just have a manager walk down and boot up all the machines and the employees can just log in when they get there.
Posted by: Matthias | Nov 18, 2008 12:18:18 PM
If I have to be somewhere doing something someone else wants me to do, that is time I should be paid for. If it is taking so long for these machines to boot up, then the sensible thing to do is to have someone from middle management come in 15 minutes early and boot up all the machines.
Posted by: Epinnoia | Nov 18, 2008 12:18:18 PM
I should be paid for my commute time too!!!
Posted by: anon | Nov 18, 2008 12:19:23 PM
I suspect these places use a web browser page to clock in - so "boot time" includes loading Windows, logging on, waiting for all the startup apps to come up, opening IE, navigating to the timecard page and submitting that information. That can take up to 15 minutes depending mostly on the number of startup items. Sure Windows may get to the log on screen in 3-5 minutes, but that's just the beginning.
The cost benefit analysis is that instead of optimizing the systems, they waste the employees' time. That costs the company less.
I would equate this to forcing every employee to turn on and start a time-card punch machine each time they came into work, but only being paid for time spent after punching in. Maybe legal, but illogical and disrespectful to the employees.
Posted by: Bob Davis | Nov 18, 2008 12:19:56 PM
People not politicians - er, really?
I used to think much like you do. Unfortunately, I think your solution fails to take several facts of life under consideration.
First, collective bargaining is often necessary to even the playing field. While what you suggest seems to make sense in theory, it ignores the fact that employees and employers have unequal bargaining positions. This is particularly true in a tight economy such as our own.
When employment positions are tight within industries across the board, "renegotiating" or "going elsewhere" is far from a simple matter. Doing both of those involves a significant risk, particularly when there are bills to pay and a family to feed. In circumstances such as this, the "demand" side of the labor equation is considered to have considerable leverage over the "supply" side, which is the primary reason why suppliers of labor find it in their interest to organize and participate in collective bargaining.
The usage of collective bargaining techniques is not a failure of individuals to take their lives into their own hands. It is, rather, a recognition of the weaknesses in one's bargaining position and a method of strengthening that position.
Posted by: Matt | Nov 18, 2008 12:20:28 PM
I worked in a call center and this is very common.
The company i worked for employed 100,000 people world wide.
Most people dont realize that these large call center companies can employ as many as 50,000 to 100,000 call center employees, a mind bogling number to be sure.
So i once tried to figure the amount the company was saving with their practice of not paying for boot time.
First i figured a 5 min boot time at the start of the day and at the close of the day, for an employee making 12.00 an hour which is a going rate in my town for this work, thats 2 dollars a day 20.00 dollars every 2 weeks.
then I multiplied that 20.00 by say 50,000 phone center employees and i came up with the number of 1,000,000 dollars every 2 weeks of man hours not paid for
12 million dollars a year, thats alot of work hours not being paid for by one company.
The boot time isnt the issue i think it is boot time and opening of all the work aplications that eats up the time the worker is not being paid for.
Posted by: Kevin Green | Nov 18, 2008 12:23:43 PM
".Although strangely they let the fat folks eat whenever they wanted, fear of armed rebellion I suppose...should have sued for skinny people discrimination."
And they also let smokers smoke ON the clock. WTF?
Posted by: blindboy | Nov 18, 2008 12:25:34 PM
Here's a simple strategy that empowers people rather than politicians and union bosses. Assess your job. If you feel your total compensation is worthy of your work, keep your job. If it's not, renegotiate or go elsewhere.
That's an outstandingly stupid comment. Haven't you ever heard the saying "United we stand, divided we fall"? If you think an individual employee has anything like bargaining parity with the management of a company with hundreds or thousands on its payroll, then you are living in a dream world.
Posted by: W. Kiernan | Nov 18, 2008 12:29:27 PM
Being a former IT manager myself - long boot times for POS or remote machines that run one or two applications (such as call center) is not unusual (I once waited 20 minutes for a Home Debot cash register to reboot). Largely because low end or older machines are used in these situations to cut costs. This has become a bigger issue as more and more companies are insisting that machines are turned off to save on power and the machines download patches when they are booted back up extending boot up times even further.
Posted by: tim | Nov 18, 2008 12:33:41 PM
I'm usually sympathetic to employers trying to increase productivity. But these employees have to arrive at a certain time. They should be paid. Providing functional tools for productivity is the employers problem unless specified ( like: bring your own tools ). If set up time is an issue, the employer needs to find a way to cut it down.
I could be snarky here and point out that Windows is notorious for this and that most IT departments resist even the thought of a non-Windows solution.
Posted by: Ken Hahn | Nov 18, 2008 12:35:25 PM
The American worker has become a complete douchebag. Suing because their computers don't boot fast enough? Perhaps, then, your employer should time your lunch-break, coffee-break, smoke-break, and bathroom-break with a stop watch. Plus, NO SYMPATHY HERE for the robots of the UAW bankrupting the American auto industry and soon to lose their jobs as a result. Give me a Toyota car, a Sony-Vaio computer, and a Samsung 60" any freakin' day. And for those here complaining of their own boot times - did you pen your complaint during your work break? Or during work hours? Thought so.
Posted by: JDW | Nov 18, 2008 12:39:12 PM
If you are required to be at the place of business, it is work. If that means waiting 5 minutes or 30 minutes for work machinery to boot up whether it is a computer or a 5 axis mill or 2 hours for a smelter to heat up, it is time your employer requires your services. Just like if the 5 axis machine only requires you to hit a button once every hour, do you only get paid for the 5 seconds it takes to hit the button?
Posted by: A Stoner | Nov 18, 2008 12:42:15 PM
Sheesh. Surely there's got to be a better argument against paying people than something to the effect of well, we require you to be there, to do something, and we'll fire you if you don't do that thing, but we don't want to pay you for it.
Of course, the obvious workaround is simply to declare all the employees exempt workers, not hourly ones. Lot of that going around.
Further guess: an employer who has trouble over this sort of thing doesn't let folks take off early on the clock if they've got a sick kid or something, and does have problems with hygiene in the rest rooms, as folks with the sort of low morale that this nonsense creates are much, much more likely to throw paper towels on the floor and such. And I bet theft of office supplies is through the roof.
Posted by: Sue Do Nym | Nov 18, 2008 12:46:28 PM
Wow.
That sounds like something that railroads would have done back when their idea of motivating the workforce involved bullwhips and rifles, and workplace safety rules meant, "Nobody notices a few more dead Chinamen." Even the Central Pacific probably never thought of not paying engine crews while they warmed up their steam locomotives in the in the morning.
I mean, seriously, even if boot times are excessive computers can be booted automatically. I set up my workplace to do that. If the machine isn't ready to go when an employee starts work, that's the company's fault.
Posted by: BarryD | Nov 18, 2008 12:48:27 PM
Many computers now have a BIOS setting that allows the computer to turn itself on at a specified time.
Perhaps the IT team should get on the ball and have all the computers set to automatically turn themselves on, thereby solving any issues regarding boot being paid or unpaid.
Posted by: Michelle | Nov 18, 2008 12:57:30 PM
I know when I worked for AT&T they implemented what was called a "Soft Phone" Basically integrating their phone system with your PC. Now they also use your phone login to assess what time you entered the office, so if you got in at 8:00 o'clock your starting time, and then turned on your computer, by the time you had logged into the network, activated softphone and began receiving calls at least 15 minutes would pass depending on what ancient machine they gave you. Now along with that even though you had entered the office at 8:00 o'clock and began the necessary steps to begin work you would be considered Tardy and given an occurrence Point. 5 occurrence points and you're fired no matter what even if you were at your desk working the phone time clock was god and you're a mere mortal. This is why people are suing, when a company hides all their administrative duties in the employees personal time where that person has to show up 15 minutes earlier to "Get to work on time" it deserves a lawsuit.
Posted by: Jared Lorz | Nov 18, 2008 12:58:43 PM
People that claim their computers are taking 15-30 minutes to boot up are quite simply exaggerating.
Posted by: Steve | Nov 18, 2008 12:59:35 PM
Now this is trivial. If an employer wants to limit pay to an employee to just those times that the employee is logged in and available to take calls, they should have some other employee come in early to turn all the PC's on, and then an employee stay late to then turn them all off. End of problem.
Posted by: Bill W. | Nov 18, 2008 1:03:55 PM
It never occured to these companies to compare A) the value of the employee's time working for half an hour vs B) how much electricity they use leaving a machine on all night.
I'm sure that B is less then a dollar. This is a no-brainer, and it's idiocy that the employer let this problem come to a lawsuit.
Posted by: Cincinnatus | Nov 18, 2008 1:04:25 PM
15 min is a long time for Vista boot up (then again I usually disable a lot Windows crap services I don't need). Not wanting to pay for 15min is a little stingy but I can understand not wanting to pay for 15 min of boot time if I had to pay consultant $300/hr.
I wonder how this employer stands on paying for time to upgrade Vista or install non-Windows apps?
lol
Posted by: Roger | Nov 18, 2008 1:05:37 PM
I'm wondering if there is some misuse of terminology going on. In my experience, what it being referred to as "boot time" here is time spent waiting for successful login to the domain and/or remote application server. I work on a large enterprise, with tens of thousands of accounts and state of the art systems still bog down heavily if there is a new policy push at the beginning of a shift. It can definitely take 30 minutes or more to complete the logon, even if the boot up to the login screen only takes a minute or so.
Posted by: Jason Wright | Nov 18, 2008 1:10:11 PM
It takes 7-8 minutes to boot up VISTA on any on my several computers. That's why I'm insisting on XP for my new laptop.
Posted by: Big Boy | Nov 18, 2008 1:16:44 PM
I have a computer that occasionally boot, so I'm getting a kick out of these responses...
Posted by: Sam Tamolon | Nov 18, 2008 1:25:04 PM
I worked at a call center in Henderson, NV where this was an issue. The issue was that they required you to be there 15 minutes early so you could boot up and be ready to take calls at your start time. Eventually they were sued and that was encouraged rather then required and everyone got make up pay for those 15 minutes. If the company is saying it's required but not paying for it then I understand this fully. If they don't require you to be there early then I don't agree with suing.
Posted by: justin | Nov 18, 2008 1:28:37 PM
"Lets turn the screw as tight as we can get it on our employees and then demand hard work and loyalty in return!"
-corporate America.
Corporate America wonders why it's in financial ruin? It doesn't value its workers, it values its stockholders. And that creates a bad business model. They're so out of touch its not funny.
Posted by: Chris | Nov 18, 2008 1:29:15 PM
The thing is though. Shouldn't the companies be paying people for their time, not their work? If I'm at one job, that's money I can't be making from another location. If they have a problem with my productivity, then they can fire me, but if they're using my time and I'm not salaried or on commission they're paying me or I don't work for them. Anyway, any company that tracks that kind of data and breaks labor laws like that is not a company that a sane or otherwise employable person would take a job at unless an extreme financial emergency crops up. Call center people tend to be bottom of the barrel or kids that don't know any better.
Posted by: UHH... | Nov 18, 2008 1:35:46 PM
I ran support at a company several years ago. We had a similar situation, with lots of big apps loading at boot.
We had to educate users out of a tendency to click "LOG IN" a whole bunch of times to "make it go faster"...the computer would buffer in all the clicks and interpret them as a series of double-clicks!
Posted by: DensityDuck | Nov 18, 2008 1:40:43 PM
I thought it was long settled law that, for hourly employees, if your employer requires you to be on site at a certain time, then you have to get paid from that time forward.
Booting up a computer is for the benefit of the employer and not the employee.
Posted by: Half Sigma | Nov 18, 2008 1:42:17 PM
"Boot" does not equal "login screen"
"Boot" equals "when I can use the PC".
I know MSFT, et al. want to define "boot" to be the login screen, but that is only 1/4 of the battle.
After login, I have sidebar, anti-virus, network drive connecting, VPN connections, seemingly network connection (which one would think was done before login) and on and on.
A PC with a blue "username" prompt is useless. It may as well be off. The PC isn't finished booting until I can open a program and do something.
Posted by: EvilDave | Nov 18, 2008 1:43:18 PM
