What the hell does mandatory overtime mean. That's just your regular hours then. Is it a way to make your salary look better as it's for the hours you're supposedly working?
It’s saying that management is incapable of properly judging their staffing needs versus their production numbers, but doesn’t want to risk having anyone not working at 100% all the time because that would mean they’re not “getting their moneys worth” out of each worker.
Usually it will happen consistently at certain times of the year, in a predictable fashion.
I'm hourly so I get paid OT. But as the other commenter said, it's easier and cheaper to pay OT than to get the building properly staffed and risk having downtime. Winter is slower so we work 40. Summer can be anywhere from 40 to 60.