Well what is slave labor? Unpaid? Do these people willing report to work unpaid?
Posted By: A slave is ? on 2006-01-06
In Reply to: I just answered the insurance post. I don't know if they have slave labor or not. nm - babs
Sounds like they may work for a certain national MT company with a private board on MT Stars. Now that's slave labor. Walmart is a walk in the park compared to the national MT company with the private board.
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LAW WITH REGARD TO UNPAID TRAINING, UNPAID WAIT TIME, DOWNTIME, ETC.
I was doing some research and just thought I would share it here.
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http://en.allexperts.com/q/Employment-Law-924/2008/3/unpaid-training.htm
Question
I'm a part time security officer. The contract is changing hands where i work (large corporate facility)...the location stays the same but a new company takes over the new contract next week. The incoming company has advised everyone that they must attend a mandatory unpaid training class. Is this legal?
Answer
Expert: Shirley McAllister, CPP, PHR
Date: 3/28/2008
Subject: unpaid training
It is not legal.
Here is the ruling from the Department of Labor Website at
http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/whdfs22.pdf
Lectures, Meetings and Training Programs: Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time only if four criteria are met, namely: it is outside normal hours, it is voluntary, not job related, and no other work is concurrently performed.
Since the meetings are not voluntary you must be paid to attend them.
FURTHER:
29 CFR 785.27 - General.
Attendance at lectures, meetings, training programs and similar activities need not be counted as working time if the following four criteria are met:
(a) Attendance is outside of the employee's regular working hours;
(b) Attendance is in fact voluntary;
(c) The course, lecture, or meeting is not directly related to the employee's job; and
(d) The employee does not perform any productive work during such attendance.
IF THE ABOVE 4 CRITERIA ARE NOT MET, THEN THE EMPLOYEE MUST BE PAID FOR THE TRAINING/MEETING TIME.
29 CFR 785.28 - Involuntary attendance.
Attendance is not voluntary, of course, if it is required by the employer. It is not voluntary in fact if the employee is given to understand or led to believe that his present working conditions or the continuance of his employment would be adversely affected by nonattendance.
__________________
ICs and unpaid trainings:
http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=59022
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FURTHER
(FROM http://www.dol.gov/elaws/esa/flsa/hoursworked/screen1d.asp)
Waiting for Work
Time which an employee is required to be at work or allowed to work for his or her employer is hours worked. A person hired to do nothing or to do nothing but wait for something to do or something to happen is still working. The Supreme Court has stated that employees subject to the FLSA must be paid for all the time spent in "physical or mental exertion (whether burdensome or not) controlled or required by the employer and pursued necessarily and primarily for the benefit of the employer of his business."
Place of Work
Hours worked include all the time during which an employee is required or allowed to perform work for an employer, regardless of where the work is done, whether on the employer’s premises, at a designated work place, at home or at some other location.
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DOL.GOV, WAGE AND HOUR OFFICES:
Having trouble finding your answer on our website?
Call the Wage and Hour Division’s toll-free help line:
1-866-4USWAGE (1-866-487-9243)
TTY: 1-877-889-5627
Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. Eastern Time
Unpaid
As an MTSO - I can tell you that not paying you is inexcusable. Use whatever means you need to get your $$.
Add me to the list of another unpaid
I will very happily disclose the name of this company and owner's name and any other info anyone else would like if I do not receive pay soon. I don't want ANYONE else to fall into the same TRAP I have fallen into......Good luck to me.
Who wants to be forced to get nasty for not being rightfully paid what they are owed? This is so irritating and I shouldn't be fighting this battle, nor should anyone else. I'm willing to go all the way though, even if it costs me more than I'm owed to teach this MTSO a lesson.
*sigh*
just got a check fromMQ for unpaid DEP.sm
s
I have asked for unpaid internships
I have been told No three times.
I keep the unpaid bills on my desk
and put the college tuition bill right on top. Money motivates.
required profiles, etc. that are unpaid. NMSG
nm
Paid downtime vs unpaid slow time - sm
Do MTSOs, nationals, usually pay for downtime for employees? If so, what has been your experience - ever received downtime? your company's policy, i.e., pay for two days downtime?
Also, as an employee for a nat'l, if you have a set schedule, what do you do when very little work comes in, for example one dictation/hour? At what point do you cut out? I'm new to working for a national and this has happened a lot lately - I know, the holidays. If there is little work, I usually only stay connected for two hours, let me sup. know, and call it a day.
I swear, sometimes I hate this industry!!  Any other company, at least in my state, if there is no work, as an employee, you still get paid or after a certain period, you get unemployment...something!
If co is Trans*m stay away! Do search for co info before making a decision about unpaid training
x
7 or even 7.5 cpl is slave labor
I had a company offer me 7.5 cents recently and I said no, perservered it out, and found a great company that pays 10 cents a line and they actually care about their MTs, not treat them like a number. Hold out for what you deserve to be paid and don't compromise. A company paying 7 cents is looking for slave labor.
Slave labor
... sounds like someone is on their high horse in a third world country and expects American MTs to get with the slave labor mentality!
Slave labor, I agree
His $10 bid was probably from China (or the company which MT's are not allowed to talk about here anymore).
I just answered the insurance post. I don't know if they have slave labor or not. nm
nm
yes, pay by production reminds me of slave labor on an assembly line, with pitiful
payback. Apparently, these nationals get away with this because we're willing to sell ourselves so cheaply to work at home. It's like having a constant monkey on your back to make production, with so many variables thrown in each day that it's just nothing but stress. And, what if you are having a bad day, not feeling up to snuff? NO CAN DO, or your paycheck reflects it. I mean, everyone has off/slow days now and then, but we're expected to work in constant high gear for fear of the loss in income. I live in a rural area, with in-house MT jobs scarce, which is why I'm doing this, but if there WERE an opening in a hospital, I'd run for it.
Report them to the Department of Labor and Industry and the BBB, too.
I can't stand it when pay is not received in a timely manner. It shows a complete lack of professionalism and inability to manage a business.
Reply: THere are not enough MTs willing to work for slave
p
can you stand on your feet all day, be abused by better than thou customers, work for slave wages?
Well, we can write to the Dept. of Labor's Apprenticeship people
and tell them that the AAMT's proposal is not what MTs want, and that the AAMT has only a very tiny percentage of MTs as members. If a lot of people do this, then the Dept. of Labor might think twice about the proposal, especially if everyone gives reasons.
High pay for labor-intensive work is not always better
I would make more money, taking less money, doing work that I really loved and could do in my sleep (figuratively) than taking more money to do work that really was not my preference and was very labor intensive (crazy hard dictators, a field that I might not be as proficient in - so spend a lot of time looking up things - VA or teaching hospitals for instance - with so many dictators and different "ills" that come into there - high pay is a must because its going to take a good bit of time to get your chops down) then I would rather take the lower pay and work I looked forward to.
Also its true - if they do not outsource the work - *and the client does not care who they use - just that its at X cpl* then it might be the only way the company can employ stateside help and still be profitable.
*shrug* I dunno - transcription is what it is. The whole thing has gone downhill *I know, dead horse beating* and I am not sure what is going to pull it out of the dumps.
But I do know I would rather do work I REALLY liked and get paid less and therefore make more money, than more money to do work I had to talk myself into wanting to do every day.
I mean - if you have your druthers. Often you do not and the work you get is the work you need to do, but its nice to have a choice, if you can.
And if you want to give your labor away for free, you will always have plenty of work. nm
:+
Not anymore unfortunately! They want cheaper labor to work harder!
I made more per line my first 2 weeks interning than now with a lot more bills and expenses.
Labor Stats from Dept of Labor for MT inside
This is quite interesting...it is too long to post here but I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on the statistics. Thanks!
tp://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:eGxrU1X5lOEJ:www.bls.gov/oco/ocos271.htm+how+much+to+become+certified+Medical+Transcription&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us
My people skills are just fine. I just want to hire people who want to work.
I've not been ugly, I've asked questions, legitimate ones. Please tell me what is wrong with that. This site is not just for MTs, it is for QA Editors, Supervisors, Service Owners, there's even sections for Billers, Coders, and Nurses.
2 people to do that amount of work, is she nuts? More like 20+ people - nm
x
Where I work if in the course of a report they do that we just have to eat it - sm
but if they say after it is all done, oh, cancel that, unless they tell the MTSO in advance (so they do not sign it out to anyone) that they had an entire dictation that needed to be canceled, then I get to bill it and be paid for it even though they say to cancel it at the end. Luckily I only have a few docs here and there that re-do a sentence or two now and then, so it is not too much of a big deal but still a pain in the butt.
I work two accounts. One is by the report and one is by the line.
Keystrokes has both, and it depends on the type of account. Some have a lot of normal exams and plain xray, the one by the line has mostly MRIs and CTs. I think it is fair and I make great money.
$25.00 per hour is more like it. I work now at per report and 14.5 cents per line
and average $30-42.00 per hour
where I work, you need to request a copy of corrected report. nm
nm
I didn't go into labor until 2.5 weeks later, so it didn't work. Sorry!...nm
x
work out an indexing system that works for you and copy (almost) every report into it.
while Ops offer lot of challenges -- that's a good thing, imho, REALLY ...
I keep my op stored in WORD sorted by
(1) client
(2) specialty (general surgeon, ortho, plastic, podiatrics, ENT, GYN, GI , urology, neurosurgery etc) .... and then in word folders
(3) within speciality, within client I name individual reports like this:
470 hernia vental simple
470 hernia umbilical
470 small bowel resection
=========================================================
470 would be that doctor's id number -- the file holding 470's reports would be named with doctor's last name
=========================================================
works for me, although I do usually do big time "indexing" until I've gota bunch of copied reports.
=========================================================
It's really important to NOT consider these NORMALS until you are more familiar with the dictator ... however... this is worthwhile ANYWAY because the joy of OPs is that most doctors say pretty much the same thing in 80% of their reports ... sometimes more. Gastroenterology and GYN are excellent "easy money" most of the time but you MUST pay attention and change every difference ...
All these saved reports need to be updated when you review your QA ... those phrases that doctor mumbled yesterday are probably mumbled 24/7/365 ... follow up and record this information.
=========================================================
I use Emedicine for my go-to for a lot of things... while they don't have op reports they are stellar at terminology and spelling, hyphens, and capitalization as far as I can tell.
One of the fabulous things about op reports is usually NO MEDICATION LOOKUPS!!!! (although you will spend time finding out the latest heart stents, hip replacemetn component marketing names, etc. ) Most medical device manufacturers have "pretty good" web sites -- use them, rather than relative Google popularity wrt spelling, caps, etc.
Good luck -- there is a learning curve but imho it is more than worth it -- Surgeons understand that their dictation is in essence their "BILL" when it comes to Medicare and insurance -- they have a vested interest in it being intelligible and complete ... they may talk really fast but most of the time, if you have samples, you will find they are saying variations of the "same thing" using the same words/terminology.
Oh, and OP pay better.
Sincerely, good luck.!
Slave Wages
I dont know who you work for but I make about $25-30 per hour. I work two jobs and 10-12 hours a day and on weekends and I make between $6000 and $7000 per month. I know that is excessive for hours but I am trying to pay off my house, car, etc and I am spoiling my 3 kids rotten!!
I type radiology, which I believe is the easiest and fastest to learn and type.
Yep, it IS just one little detail, the fact that you are slave to them, but when they
x
If you think you are working for slave wages now...
Medical transcription is not your field. We work for slave wages and have to compete with offshore transcriptionists who work for next to nothing.
You will need to have an extensive medical knowledge, be willing to constantly purchase new equipment and reference books, and for all of that you get paid worse than a Wal-Mart greeter. Wages consistently have been going down, not up.
If you have a bachelor's degree, I would look into other fields if I were you.
The only way I would recommend this field to someone is if they are handicapped or have an ill child or something that forces them to work from home. Aside from that, I wouldn't recommend it.
Again, if you make yourself a slave to them they will never respect you.
and that will give her a nudge towards "independence" instead of being dependent on you and not appreciating it.
Your heart is in the right place but sometimes good-intentioned people like yourself unknowingly make themselves appear to be a doormat and can't figure out why they get treated as such.
gotta love your ID "MQ Slave" says it all.
Tooooo funny. My daughter stopped in the other day and headed right to my office. She said, "OH MY GAWD! MOM'S IN THE KITCHEN!" 
Sleeping all day long while my little fantasy slave does my lines LOL :-)
Wow... you vacuum every day? Dang, I'd never even get 50 lines done a day if I did that. I maintain and clean seriously on my one day off, but... hats off to you, sister!
6 cents a line is not competitive imo. More like slave wages.
x
You do not need the 1099. You just need to report the income. Report the company/person ...sm
to the IRS for not sending out the 1099.
FT people usually get work before it goes to PT
people and that is probably the situation here. You could ask but you'll probably get a response similar to above, that FT get the work first.
Do you MDI-MD people have enough work? sm
I saw an ad on one of the other boards, thought I had seen mention here not too long ago of not enough work for those who were there. Just wanted to find out what the situation is now before I go any further in pursuing anything with them. TIA!
People really do think we don't have to work don't they? LOL
I have a friend who is off this week and she called assuming I could just go do stuff with her...no wonder she always asks me for so many favors...apparently people think we get paid for doing nothing! I bet they wonder why my house is such a mess if that's the case! LOL
I charge the same amount for a "normal" report as for any other report.
You still have to listen to the dictation and change anything that's different. I had one woman try to pull this on me. She'd dictate, "Just pull up my normal, but change this, change that, switch that around, move that, add this, delete that, and change the other." Then she'd only want to pay me what equated to $.03 per line. She wanted 1:1 on her dictation to transcription ratios. I told her to take her cheap account down the road because I'm worth more than that.
I know people who went to work for Cymed.....
The ones who say they are happy are the ones that don't really need a good pay check (older ladies who basically work for the insurance and a little extra cash). The others say that they can definitely tell a big difference with them not paying for spaces. They all say the people are nice though and offer good bonuses for extra work on the weekend at times. I've also heard that there are a lot of ESL doctors. I tested and was offered 9.5 cents with them, but everyone else I've heard says they were offered 8 to 8.5 cpl????
Too bad for all the people that go there and have no work. I am not the least bit impressed with
Dixie. Maybe she had better refer people to offices of MQ where there is work before she tells everyone how great MQ is across the broad. Maybe we all have gone and gotten other jobs because we have no work at MQ. Maybe you if you arent Dixie can enlighten that lady about the other side of MQ she seems unwilling to talk about. How about that.
People don't tell because they like having enough work, I imagine - also, sm
Josie Blowsie over there may not make the same line rate I make. That's subbing, of course. I don't tell what I charge my local contracts because I don't want to be underbid.
DH has one through his work, but he's in charge of over 100 people. Can't see
x
Obviously these people don't have to wake up and go to work EVER
x
If you don't want to work for 8 or 9 cpl, don't. But people know what they will be making when
:+
I'm with you! So I work the hours people don't want
to work. Much too stressful to fight for work. Life is too short for me to take the money I already earn to spend on a physician prescribing nerve pills.
people sometimes goof off at work, nothing wrong with that
 It doesnt take up THAT much time.
Most people don't have that many backups for no reason if they have enough work so I wonder about
your response.
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