No Aircraft
Fatigue
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy; Human Factors
We were forced by [operations] to work a duty day of more than the FAR Duty Max of 20 hours.We were informed by the flight deck that we were going to remain at the gate due to weather in the area.  That delay lasted until [late that night] when we finally departed.  While holding at the gate with passengers onboard for 7 hours 13 minutes; we were contacted by the Crew Desk that we were going to be going over the international on duty max of 16 hours 30 minutes.  The crew desk informed us that if we extended our duty and continued with our assignment that we would receive [premium pay].  However; if we didn't accept the [premium] pay that the crew desk was prepared to reassign us each new trips no matter our present duty since they were short staffed flight attendants.  We decided to stay on our present trip.Upon our arrival; we were aware that our duty was now going to be over the extended duty max FAR of 20 hours.  We contacted [company] and spoke to Crew Scheduling.  He instructed us that they was no such FAR duty max and that if we didn't continue on that our previous agreement of [premium] pay would be removed as penalty.  We felt that we had no choice but to continue on and go over 20 hours of duty.  With that; our cabin crew had been up for 23 hours upon our arrival.
[Report narrative contained no additional information]
Air carrier flight attendants reported they feel they were coerced to work beyond the FAA mandated 20 hour duty day maximum.