This should be an arrestable offense. Fuck these pieces of shit.

Maybe I read this differently than you. I don’t see this as volunteering personal time, but asking people during their work time to help iwith a different job. Not that the article says either way, but volunteering personal time seems unlikely

If they’re asked to do so during regular work time, they’re probably still expected to do their normal tasks too (as overtime)

In the cases where I've been asked to do things like this it was instead of my regular work, not on top of it. US labor laws are tricky, but in general they need to assign you an amount of work that can be done in a reasonable amount of time. (contact a lawyer for details)

I was literally told once “yes we can have meetings all day because you have all night to finish your code.” The same was expected when they had ‘team building’ outings.

That does happen. The law doesn't back them up, but many companies have that culture and good luck proving you were let go because of that vs something that is legal.

There are plenty of jobs that are more reasonable. They tend to be boring jobs though, so many are willing to pay the price to work a more exciting job.

I think maybe you don’t understand the difference between exempt and non-exempt employees here in the US. The law absolutely backs employers up on this unfortunately. Especially if, like me, you live in an at-will state.

Exempt employees are expected to get their work done, but the work does need to be reasonable. If they give you 40 hours of meetings you can have a good case they are asking too much to expect anything more. While hours are not given by law, there is still an expectation of reasonableness.

I wish I still had your optimism and naivety. Last time this happened to me I was let go for “not fitting in with the culture” (the aforementioned culture of working all day), which is a completely legal reason in my state. I was denied unemployment despite being able to prove that I had been told to work all night. 10 years earlier I was let go for the same reason after refusing to participate in prayer during a meeting.

There is no protection for employees in the manner you are speaking of, at least not here.

Asking about the culture and work environment is what you are supposed to be doing when they ask "are there any questions". I've never had a problem finding a job where I'm expected to work about 40 hours and go home. Once in a while they ask for extra work in an emergency, but that is rare and they have all made it up to me somehow.

The protection isn't great I'll agree, but it isn't hard to find places that don't treat you like that. Don't work for the rest no matter how interesting the job is.