RE: "Are technical writers the unsung heroes of document generation?"

["Janoff, Steven" <Steven -dot- Janoff -at- hologic -dot- com>]

This is legal stuff.  I'm asking why, on principle, should a software tech writer have this privilege?  All you're telling me is what happened, with your own particular spin on why.

Is this the beginning of a revolution?  Is everybody going to get overtime?  In every state?  Oh, that's a good bet.  So you have one little protected class.  And yes, there are other exceptions in that CLC section.

And we forgot to ask the most fundamental question of all:  Are there any California software tech writers out there making a fortune on overtime?  Anybody really cleaning it up sideways?  Anybody funding a lavish lifestyle, getting their employer to pay twice the normal going annual rate?  Anybody hangin' with the Hollywood stars, running from the paparazzi?  I don't *think* so.

Companies are not stupid.  So the protected writer makes a few bucks here and there.  Big whoop.  Nobody's getting rich off this stuff.  And this "protected class" is getting penalized in other ways, is my point.

There oughtta be a law -- just not the one on the books.

Steve

On Tuesday, June 23, 2015 1:52 PM, Robert Lauriston wrote:

> Why should a "software technical writer" get paid overtime, if a "hardware technical writer" does not?

The computer software industry lobbied the legislature for a special exemption so they could make programmers work long hours without having to pay overtime, and the legislature came up with California Labor Code section 515.5, which begins:

(a) Except as provided in subdivision (b), an employee in the computer software field shall be exempt from the requirement that an overtime rate of compensation be paid pursuant to Section 510 ...

The NWU lobbied against that, and the legislature added section 515.5(b)(5), excluding writers.

If there had been a National Software Developers Union to lobby on behalf of developers, maybe the bill wouldn't have passed at all.

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