Regardless of how long you have worked in Animation, whether you're brand new or a veteran, a supervisor or a director-- All workers are entitled to overtime pay for work that exceeds 40 hours a week. It is an enforceable part of your collective agreement! This is our guide on how to ask for it!
As soon as you become aware that you cannot finish your assigned work without going over your allotted 40 hours per week, reach out to your supervisor and inform them.
Ask if there is someone else available to have the work reassigned to or if you can get an extension on your deadline. If neither is available, inform your supervisor that you will require overtime to meet your deadline.
Establish with your supervisor how many hours of overtime you will need and how much overtime is approved. (If your supervisor is not available, you can do this negotiation with a Line Producer or the VP of Production.)
If overtime is not approved, youmust not work unpaid overtime.
However, it is not always as simple as the steps above to get overtime approved. Often you will be met with budgetary restrictions or other justifications why overtime hours cannot be approved. That does not change the material fact that if you are working, you must be paid for it. If you run into these obstacles, please refer to the steps below.
Remain professional and positive. Continue to try and solve the problem.
Be firm that you will not work unpaid overtime in order to meet the deadline, and be open to finding other solutions.
Ask questions! If overtime cannot be granted, can the scope of the work be limited in some other way?
Is there reuse available?
Can the deadline be extended?
Can anyone else help?
What are the consequences for not meeting your deadline?
As you go through this conversation, Document it. Keep screenshots or PDFs of emails, save chat messages, write down a journal of what was said in conversations and date it. This will help to show that you made efforts to avoid working overtime, and attempted to negotiate the situation.
If you have exhausted all of the previously mentioned options and your manager is still insisting that overtime be worked, an uncomfortable impasse has been reached.
We now apply the concept of “Work now, Grieve Later.” (With Grieve referring to the grievance process outlined in your collective agreement. We can also seek remedy through other avenues, but this is the easiest phrase to remember.)
Comply with your manager but collect all of the documentation that you have generated by going through the previous discussion points. (A dated journal of your experience in a meeting counts! If in doubt, call in a shop steward as a witness for your meeting.)
Document all of the overtime hours that you work on a time card or app saved off of the employer's servers. Make sure that this time card is clearly written and dated.
Take your collected evidence to a shop steward or to the senior steward. We will begin the process of remedying the situation with you.
Final Tips!
Try to build an understanding of how long tasks take you by using timers and logging your hours.
Communicate proactively with your supervisor, as problems are easier to solve the earlier they are caught.
Build relationships with the other members on your team— If no one can complete their assigned work without overtime, there is a problem with the schedule and it needs to be addressed.
Always track your hours on a separate timecard from the one submitted to your employer.
Making sure that you are paid fairly for all of the hours that you work in is very important, not only for your well being, but the well being of your peers at work. Not reporting all of the hours you spend on a task creates the illusion to the studio's bottom line that difficult work can be done in a short time. This incorrect information then informs budgets and schedules for upcoming projects and creates a self-perpetuating problem. Issues come up again, people overwork, and the studio ends up behind on their deadlines.
Being paid fairly is what's best for you, your fellow workers and the studio. You deserve it.
