[Jeff Higgins]

In this company, one's work is never "done". When it is, there is already another (already late) project awaiting. I put in over 600 hours of overtime last year. This year will surpass that. Granted, my situation is different than most others'; the majority of that OT is when travelling on AOG and tech assist work. When on the road, we work 12 on, 12 off until we come home. Incidentally, this is purely by my choice. In my 28 years here, I have never been forced or coerced into working overtime. Granted, when we are busy (like we have been lately) it is pretty much understood that we will all pitch in and do our part. In the five years preceding the big upswing in commercial aviation in about the 2006-2007 time frame, I had not worked a minute of overtime. It comes and goes; such is the cyclic nature of our business.

As an aside, those whose inflated egos and self images allow them to convince themselves they can leave earlier than everyone else, because "their" work is "done", are little appreciated by the rest of the group. They usually have no idea what is really going on when they are given less to do than others, thus allowing them to leave early. The rest of us wind up picking the extra load they refuse to carry. They wind up leaving.

Mike, I'm not sure of your experiences at Boeing, but the company did get into some hot water years ago with undocumented/uncompensated overtime. Not with any of its unions, either, but with the good ol' Federal Gubmint. I can't remember the entire gist of it, but it had to do with cost accounting on military programs. As a result, it has been mandatory around here for well over a decade (probably more like 15 years or more) to report and record each and every stinking minute of overtime. That's for us, the professional workforce - it's always been that way for the hourly work force. That leads me to ask two questions: How long ago was this? Which location?

Anyway, back to the IAM. These guys do get saddled with "mandatory overtime". The rules are that they can work three weekends before they have to have one off. The can work up to 12 hour days. They can work up to something 160 hours a quarter before some other "special rules" kick in. And the company has been making them do just this for the last couple of years. Unlike me, they have no choice. Hell, when I get back from a trip, I can make myself pretty darn scarce around here for quite some time (and have). The IAM mechanics that travel with us report for work the next day, and are right back on their factory OT schedule. No break, no matter how long they have been gone.

Most of them have earned far more than their base yearly salaries already this year. They can afford to sit out for awhile. The most common complaint in their ranks is the sheer amount of OT expected; they need and want a break.