I work for a major yacht builder in wisconsin,have been employed there for 13 years,when I was hired we received overtime pay for anything over 40hrs in a week,our vacation time counted as hours worked,about a year ago the company changed that policy to a 40 hours worked policy which I know is legal.
the problem is when they changed it they said overtime was not mandatory,and they still claim it is not, but if you don't work it it will be held against you in your reveiw, they make you feel like your in the wrong for taking vacation,or not working overtime on a holiday week or on a week when you might have a day off.
whats a guy to do?
thanks

They could make overtime mandatory if they wanted to. That being the case, if they choose to hold it against you in your review when you refuse, that's perfectly legal.

yeah similar thing happened to me at another job, when they hired you they never mentioned that overtime was mandatory but then they let me go about a month later because i didnt work 6 days a week. I think wisconsin needs new lawmakers. All of our laws suck!

Just so you know, other states aren't any better. There is NO state where laws prohibit mandatory overtime, although there are a very few states where you cannot be penalized if you refuse to work 7 days in a row. BTW, Wisconsin isn't one of them.

There is ONE state (Maine) which limits the number of overtime hours that can be reequired in a two week period.

There is ONE state (California) which prohibits the employer from disciplining or terming an employee from refusing to work more than 72 hours in a week.

To the best of my knowledge, that's it for limitations. (There are some industry specific regulations where there is a public safety factor, such as airline pilot or truck driver.) In all other states, you can be required to work 24/7, unless you're in one of the very few states with a one-day-off-in-seven rule; in that case you can be required to work 24/6.

i was talking in general not just labor laws. Some of the laws put in effect to limit drugs really suck. According to my pharmacist wisconsin is the only state to regulate some ingredient (cant remember which) in allergy medication i used to take and now i gotta fork out cash for prescription because over the counter medication no longer works. We have others unfortunatly im way too tired to think of anything and I really need sleep :(