It's different if you get paid for overtime, though (usually time and a half). Companies threaten action against people working overtime because then the compan

It's different if you get paid for overtime, though (usually time and a half). Companies threaten action against people working overtime because then the company has to pay more and that's a Bad Thing (TM), (even though the employees are providing way more value to the company than the company is providing to them), not because people want a staffing problem to make the company "wake up" or something. My mother doesn't work overtime out of the goodness of her heart, she just scrapes by and wants to be able to retire at a reasonable age.