Workin' 9 to 5? Yeah, right - Patrick White and Matthew Trevisan

It may come in the form of a meeting scheduled after closing time, the promise of after-hours pizza or even the spectre of layoffs, but stimuli to work late without pay are becoming evermore engrossing for Canadian workers.

More Canadians than ever before are toiling free of charge, induced by a combination of fear, devotion and a number of liberally dangled carrots.

On Tuesday, a Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce teller launched a $600-million class-action lawsuit against her employer, alleging thousands of hours of overtime went unpaid to her and her colleagues.

Workplace lawyers and consultants say that the CIBC suit could be the tip of the iceberg.
By the numbers, more workers don't get paid for working overtime than do. According to Statistics Canada, 23 per cent of the Canadian work force regularly toils more than eight hours a day. But only 10 per cent of the work force is actually paid for it.

"Overtime issues are one of the central problems in just about every business out there," said Richard Press, an employment lawyer and partner at Davis LLP in Vancouver. "There's a growing difficulty with performing a 9-to-5 job."

The problem? While cellphones, e-mail and increasing workloads have laden workers with around-the-clock tasks, compensation is still based on an eight-hour schedule.

So what exactly is keeping the Canadian worker tied down to work?

"In some workplaces, there is a fear culture," Mr. Press said. "Employers will have a round of layoffs or threaten layoffs, and the people they pick will be those who are least productive."

That dread of a pink slip is enough to convince many in the banking industry to appear busy well after closing time, said Joel Rochon, a lawyer who has been researching unpaid overtime infractions at two major Canadian financial institutions.

During his research, Mr. Rochon has found that bank managers also regularly employed a few tricks, such as scheduling meetings for tellers after normal work hours and reprimanding workers who clock excessive overtime.

"They have created an environment where it's unfashionable not to work overtime," he said. "It's become standard to understaff branches, provide huge workloads for those on the front lines and expect the work to be done."

But overtime culture isn't limited to the financial sector.

Lorna Baptiste, a registered nurse who has worked in Toronto General Hospital's cardiovascular intensive care unit for 20 years, said nurses don't file for overtime on all but the longest days.

Her shift last night finished at 7:15 p.m., but she anticipated spending nearly an hour longer on the job without filing for overtime.

That's rule the nurses in her unit follow, she said: They usually don't file for overtime if they are there less than an hour past their shift.

In general, working overtime in the health industry the rule rather than the exception, and the pressure to keep up with peers can be great.

"In the caring industry, it's very different. If we're all going to start saying, 'Well, I'm taking 10 minutes for this; you have to pay me for that,' it just doesn't work."

Indeed, more than of half of all nurses in the country regularly work overtime without any form of compensation, according to Statscan.

In the education profession, there's a perception that teachers and principals clock in at 9 a.m. and clock out at 4 p.m., said Susanne Ellis, principal of Bayridge Elementary School in Kingston.

Not so, she said.

"There are very few who only work about eight hours a day - very few. Most are easily in the 50-hour range, minimum," she said, adding that often teachers mark and plan lessons at home late into the night.

"That's an expectation when you go into the position, that there are going to be times when you're working considerably long hours," she said. "It's not just the time that students are in the school."

In technology industries, programmers regularly put in 100-hour weeks under pressure to finish a product ahead of a scheduled launch, Mr. Press said. Companies such as Google and Electronic Arts support that with late-night cafeterias and sleep pods.

In many industries, managers have begun to accommodate positions that can no longer be crammed into a traditional 9-to-5 workday by encouraging an ad hoc workweek.

"There's this informal arrangement at many places," Mr. Press said. "You'll work an extra two hours on Monday, then on Wednesday you take off early. It makes sense on a gut level, but if you're going by the book, it's unlawful."

While the CIBC case is the biggest lawsuit to hit a Canadian business alleging unpaid overtime, similar cases have wended through U.S. courts.

Late last year, a court told Wal-Mart to pay $78-million (U.S.) to its Pennsylvania employees for not paying them for working through rest breaks and beyond a regular workday.

The original lawsuit alleged that Wal-Mart managers had forced employees to work after they had already clocked out for breaks.

"We are going to start seeing more of these suits here," Mr. Press said. "It was only a matter of time."

Still, at some workplaces, working late is not a matter of fear or coercion. Some workers simply like their jobs.

"I really don't keep track of my time," said Shyla Seller, production manager with Arsenal Pulp Press in Vancouver, who routinely puts in 10-hour days. "In our industry, we're doing it for a reason. It's more of a labour of love."