On call legalities

[dee]

Anybody on here have to be on call? If so are you paid or compensated for your time or waiting period? I've seen some instances about on call being compensated due to a law regarding the twc but haven't been able to really nail anything down.

[yellowstang]

Depends if you are salary or hourly I would guess. The place I work at now is the first salaried job that I have had that also pays for on call coverage. Usually it is considered part of your salary/duties. When I was hourly (waaaay back in the early 90's) we also got paid extra, after they were reported to the labor board and got investigated.

[lowthreeohz]

When I was on call it was 1 hour extra pay on weekdays and 2 hours per weekend day, so 9 extra hours of pay a week. Call outs were billed a minimum of 4 hours, with time actually worked @ 2x hourly, then the filler up to 4 hours at regular pay. I liked the 18 hours a check and rarely ever got called out

[LANTIRN]

I cover on call and we don't get paid to wait by the phone, it is just part of our duties. My wife works for a hospital and has to be on call sometimes and they do get some small compensation to wait by the phone. I have no idea what the law actually is though; I get paid well and get a lot of overtime so I never thought to look into it.

[ELVIS]

its 2015, do you not have one of those new cellular phones? you are literally sitting at home staring at the old rotary dial phone waiting for it to ring?

god bless.

[dee]

We are handed a pager but are expected to be able to be at the place of employment within 20 minutes and in the same form as a normal work day. This is for a entire weekend and we are paid hourly so it's not figured in as salary. It kinda screws up a entire weekend and ties you up to do much of anything. The employer says they don't have to compensate for anything unless called out. No contract was made and on call duties just came about after several years.

[Binky]

My tower used to have a rotating on-call, but I moved everything to an always-on model.

Everyone is salary, so their time on call (12 hours of waiting on a phone call) is not eligible for compensation. But, if they had to do any work, then I would expect them to have an entry in their time sheet that would go towards their 40hr minimum workweek. They aren't eligible for overtime, so anything >40 is still null for $$$, but I count it as far as work/life balance.

If they spent time on the weekend, or work a late night issue they can take time off the next business day.

[BP]

The TWC isn't going to do anything.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/

All your questions can be answered there. On call at home isn't considered as time worked in most instances. 20 minutes seems pretty unreasonable but if it's a condition of your employment then either deal with it or look for a better job.

[Forever_frost]

its 2015, do you not have one of those new cellular phones? you are literally sitting at home staring at the old rotary dial phone waiting for it to ring?

god bless.

I have one but they are really heavy.

[dee]

The TWC isn't going to do anything.

http://www.dol.gov/whd/flsa/

All your questions can be answered there. On call at home isn't considered as time worked in most instances. 20 minutes seems pretty unreasonable but if it's a condition of your employment then either deal with it or look for a better job.

I was wondering about that. What saw is that if you are not allowed to do normal activities that you have then you should be compensated. I figured I would be screwed since I work for the government anyways but it's worth a shot to try and get me off call.

The dol website kept linking me over to some bs about fishing vessel work laws.

[mustang_revival]

Up to the employer unless any labor laws are being broken or stretched.

I've been on call the last 15 years, one place salary +overtime = +20% of salary pretty much in a separate check. My gig now its just part of the job for my responsibilities, including a couple of extra rotations.

I will say some of our guys have a rotation that is brutal, pretty much screws their entire weekend up every time.

So your not alone, the choice for you is if it is worth it.

Similar to Jedi we give folks and will take a business day off after to recoup and work/life stuff.

[Craizie]

I'm on call every weekend as part of my normal work duty. I get paid a bit more than most employees here and I only work 4 days a week. Some times I'm busy as hell and other times I don't even get a phone call. It's kind of a wash really.

[ceyko]

At least in IT, most are salary and there is no additional comp for on-call. On-call IT folks are usually called often too which is a big factor in why a lot of folks quit to do find another job role.

[Jewrrick]

To me, saying you have to be dressed and there in 20 minutes means you can't do anything except be at home. I would talk to a professional about if any laws are being broken, seems extremely unreasonable to not receive any additional pay.

[dee]

To me, saying you have to be dressed and there in 20 minutes means you can't do anything except be at home. I would talk to a professional about if any laws are being broken, seems extremely unreasonable to not receive any additional pay.

That's my goal. We are wanting to just push for three hours each day which seems somewhat reasonable.