Employer "on call" requirements.

[nightmare69]

This has nothing to do with me but someone who started a job recently (hourly pay) and is required to be on call about once a month for a week. The kicker is the employer is not paying them to be on call and only gives comp time if they are called in, no compensation for gas burnt and the comp time must be taken within the pay week as to avoid time and a half. Talk about pure garbage.

The question I'm wondering is are you under any obligation to answer the on call phone if you are not being compensated in anyway for being on call? When you are not on the clock I consider that my time to do with what I please. Does Texas or Federal labor law have anything to say about the obligations of unpaid on call? Could they discipline or terminate you for not answering the phone?

[maintenanceguy]

legally it depends on whether you are "engaged to wait" or "waiting to be engaged".

If the employer tells you to stay home, don't leave town, stay sober, or requires you do otherwise alter your plans or travel to wait for the call, you are being engaged to wait and they should be paying you for your time.

If the employer lets you go about your business but still might call you in, you are waiting to be engaged and the employer does not have to pay you for that time.

I am waiting to be engaged 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I get called in quite often but I have never been expected to curtail my travel to be available. I've been called when I was out of town before and they had to call the next guy on the list.

[nightmare69]

legally it depends on whether you are "engaged to wait" or "waiting to be engaged".

If the employer tells you to stay home, don't leave town, stay sober, or requires you do otherwise alter your plans or travel to wait for the call, you are being engaged to wait and they should be paying you for your time.

If the employer lets you go about your business but still might call you in, you are waiting to be engaged and the employer does not have to pay you for that time.

I am waiting to be engaged 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I get called in quite often but I have never been expected to curtail my travel to be available. I've been called when I was out of town before and they had to call the next guy on the list.

So there is nothing they can do if you are unavailable. No one should have to put their life on hold and not be compensated for it.

[WildBill]

So there is nothing they can do if you are unavailable. No one should have to put their life on hold and not be compensated for it.

Of course they can "do something". They can find someone else who is willing to "put their life on hold" and not be compensated. INAL

[cb1000rider]

I'm not an attorney.
My understanding of being hourly and on-call is that it depends on how much you're impacted by being on-call. If it imposes significant restrictions on your free time, then it's likely that you should be compensated, although not necessarily at the same rate. Read:
http://www.twc.state.tx.us/news/efte/c_ ... _time.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Employers generally aren't required to compensate for mileage to and from work. Also if the work site changes, they're not required to compensate. If the travel is "special" or extra-ordinary - like reporting to work in another state that isn't usual work - it should trigger both time and mileage compensation. Read: http://www.troutmansanders.com/lewinter2011-04/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; (Governed by Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA))



This is a little fuzzy for me:
"...only gives comp time if they are called in, no compensation for gas burnt and the comp time must be taken within the pay week as to avoid time and a half. "

So what happens on Friday, if you've worked 40 hours and you get called in for 4. That entites you to 6 hours of comp time, but you've already worked 40...
I assume that doesn't happen. Basically, if you're called in, you get 1.5 hours off for every hour that you work, but no compensation for fuel. That seems a little sketchy to me... That might be worth checking into...

And yea, he doesn't have to answer the phone if he's not getting paid, but they don't have to employ him either.. Texas is at-will. He can be fired for not answering the page.

Personally, I allow full time employees to expense miles on their personal vehicles for work tasks.. I encourage it if they're on the lower end of the pay scale.

[ddstuder]

I go one call on week per month.

I get $50 a month for phone. 1 hour of pay per day (1.5 on weekends), and any time worked I get paid 1.5 for.

I would not do it for free!

[Keith B]

So there is nothing they can do if you are unavailable. No one should have to put their life on hold and not be compensated for it.

Of course they can "do something". They can find someone else who is willing to "put their life on hold" and not be compensated. INAL

This. If you are a salaried employee, then they can make you be on call as much as they want, and they do not have to give you comp time or any extra pay. If you don't like it, they will find someone who does.

I spent over 35 years being on call and available. They were usually reasonable if you were not the official 'on call' person for that week and were tied up. They would try to find someone else. However, if you were the official on-call person, then you were on the hook to drop what you were doing and get on the phone or head to the office to work.

[VoiceofReason]

Run this past the NRLB. That is where you will get the law and if employees are not getting the pay they are entitled to, they will get the employee back pay.
Many years ago a company in Colorado required employees to carry a pager and respond to it. They weren't being paid unless they actually went to work.

Short story is, the NRLB required the company to pay four or five years back pay to all employees they should have paid to start with..

[MechAg94]

Welcome to the oil field. On call the rest of your life!

I would say the same about the chemical industry working at plants. Hourly people are normally paid OT for call outs though. Salaried people are not.

For this case, the ON-CALL time is not 24/7 all the time, just so I would likely be a bit more flexible with the employer. If the comp time real, then there is at least some compensation (theoretically). My experience with comp time is that it isn't a substitute for pay and you usually can't take it without impacting your normal job.

[jimlongley]

So there is nothing they can do if you are unavailable. No one should have to put their life on hold and not be compensated for it.

Of course they can "do something". They can find someone else who is willing to "put their life on hold" and not be compensated. INAL

This. If you are a salaried employee, then they can make you be on call as much as they want, and they do not have to give you comp time or any extra pay. If you don't like it, they will find someone who does.

I spent over 35 years being on call and available. They were usually reasonable if you were not the official 'on call' person for that week and were tied up. They would try to find someone else. However, if you were the official on-call person, then you were on the hook to drop what you were doing and get on the phone or head to the office to work.

Also

As a (salaried, and thus different rules) technical support engineer for three different companies over the years I was not only assigned a periodic rotation of "official" on call, when I was darn well expected to be available, but I was also expected to be on call for "overflow" or "specific expertise" the rest of the time. As a team lead at two of those companies, my on call time was spent fielding internal calls, which could be more complicated than customer issues, and there was no such thing as not hearing the phone or being out of range.

I spent half of my friend's daughter's wedding reception sitting in the parking lot on a conference call with my team member and an upper manager, working out an issue which turned out to be a popped commercial power breaker, which was wholly the customer's responsibility and didn't need to involve us at all. I never received one cent of extra compensation, as a salaried employee that was considered to be part of the job description.

OK, funny one. As an hourly employee in a union company, I got a minimum 4 hours pay for any call out that I responded to, anything less than 2.5 hours worked was considered gravy. One night, at 2am, I got a call to go to a state agency where the bells and lights were out on a console. Since they were a 24/7 operation they required an instant dispatch. I went to the garage and picked up my truck, driving past the place I was going. When I arrived the problem was evident, no power to the console. Searching the breaker box revealed no tripped breakers and I began to try to convince them to call an electrician. An off duty supervisor was called in, who turned out to be a friend of my wife's, and as I showed her what I had checked and tried to convince here that the problem was her responsibility, I noticed a second breaker box down behind some boxes in the electric room. And there was the popped breaker. Turned it on, and v'oila, power to the console. Worked more then 2.5 hours and got paid time and a half for it.

Two weeks later, same call, didn't bother to get my truck, just took a few pocket tools and a meter. Same problem, popped breaker, and this time the supervisor was there when I got there, and wanted to know why the console kept popping the breaker, I told her we would come back during the day and investigate. 1.5 hours door to door, 4 hours pay.

Two weeks later, are you noticing the beginnings of a trend here, same thing, reset the breaker, less than 1 hour door to door, and 4 hours pay.

Went back the next day and really detail stripped the assembly and could not find any obvious reason for the breaker popping. Suggested they have an electrician replace the breaker because breakers going bad, although rare, is not unheard of. They replaced the breaker.

Two weeks later, same time same place, and by now I am tired of always getting this call, and having to drive over there to reset their breaker. About 45 minutes door to door and 4 hours pay. I checked with dispatch, and it turned out they were skipping the seniority based call out list because my wife's friend had had a note added to their service profile requesting that I always be the first person called.

Because of the way this call center was set up, they all could call out, but there were no bells or lights for incoming calls because they all went through the console. I went back the next day and rewired a couple of the phone lines, the main number and a couple of others, so that they would also ring on a direct phone as well as on the console, allowing them to get incoming calls, if not all of them, if the console was down.

Two weeks later, 2am, my phone rings. I take the call, and then call in on one of the lines that I wired to ring direct, told the person to go in the electric room and reset 'x' breaker. She gets back on the phone and everything is working fine. 15 minutes, 4 hours pay, never even got out of bed. Went back the next day and tore apart the console again, replaced the power supply, regrounded and bonded the grounds.

Yup, two weeks later, 2am. Never got out of bed, 4 hours pay.

And again, except this time one of the people working there noticed something that solved the issue. Every week the cleaning people swept and moppped the floor, and every other week they buffed it. On the end of the console was an electric outlet that had been placed on the console for the purpose of plugging test equipment in, and every two weeks the guy who was buffing the floor plugged his buffer into it, and popped the breaker. Still got 4 hours pay.

Went in the next day and told the state what we had found, and told them we were requesting that they have an electrician cut off that outlet, and of course the bureaucratic wheels then churned into motion, and it took a couple of months for them to decide it was ok to do so and to let a contract for the electrician and such, and every two weeks at 2am on Tuesday morning, I got the call, rolled over in bed, called them, told them how to reset their breaker, and got paid 4 hours pay to do so. And then they fixed it.

[nightmare69]

He is an hourly employee who is not being paid to be on call but they give him a company phone to hold on to for a week. He also is not being paid to take calls, he is given comp time and this time must be taken in the same week as to not go above 40hrs.

To me it seems he is on his time off the clock and has no obligation to anwser the phone. I don't see how the company could discipline or fire him for it either.

[MechAg94]

Answer the phone, but don't put your life on hold. I think comp time can legally be considered compensation, but it sounds odd to me that they don't just pay overtime for the call outs.

Was this call out stuff in the job description or communicated to him when he accepted? If so, there is little to complain about. He can find a new job. Yes, you should not have to work time without compensation and this is borderline, but lots of people put up with this sort of thing in their jobs in one way or another.

[Abraham]

nightmare69,

I was told by my employer (this was in 1970) that I had to "stand by" every other week-end in case I was called out.

Stand by Defined: Meant, no travel, be by the phone, obviously no alcohol, and NO COMPENSATION for standing by for the entire week-end. But, if called out, I'd receive a minimum of 3 hours pay even if the call out took less than 3 hours.

I told them if I was home and called out, I'd go, but if I wasn't compensated for stand by time, I would'nt put my life on hold by "standing by". I suggested if they wanted to fire me or punish me, I'd agree to go to the Nation Labor Relations Board with them to discuss it.

They didn't challenge me and I never heard another word about standing by...

This same company at one time told me I had to come to work early and gather up the tools for the day, ice up/fill drinking water jugs and gather whatever paperwork was necessary for the days work.

Our day began at at 8:00 A.M., but to get ready for the day took a minimum of 30/45 minutes. I was expected to get there around 7:15 to accomplish this task.

I was an hourly worker. I asked if my hours began when I actually went to work getting ready for the day. I was informed NO, my hours were to start at 8:00 A.M.

I outright refused if I wasn't being paid for work. They responded it was just expected of me to get ready for the day without pay as that was what all who came before me would do. I suggested those who came before me were suckers.

I never heard another word about it.

Oh, they also wanted me to do paperwork for the day's work when I got back at days end and of course they said the clock stopped at 5:00 and if the paperwork went past that time, I wouldn't be paid for it.

You can guess what I told them.

With each of the refusals to work for free, I fully expected to be fired for standing up for myself, but apparently they knew I was a live wire...

Your friend sounds like the 1970's workers vs a company who wants free work from their employees.

I would suggest he contact the NLRB and get their take on his situation.

[ELB]

...
... and every other week they buffed it.

I was thinking of buffers the whole time I was reading your story. Years ago at the old Brooks AFB in San Antonio, once a month, late on a Friday afternoon, the network in our building (which my division was responsible for) would go haywire and we'd get complaint calls. My tech guys said there was suddenly a tremendous surge in traffic on the network, and they couldn't figure out why. Then one day one of my lieutenants came out of the cable closet, turned the corner on the hallway...and noticed a floor buffer plugged into an outlet in the hallway. He asked the operator to turn it off for moment and checked the network. Sure enough, all was back to normal on the network. Our power supply to the servers and network components turned out to be on the same circuit as that hall outlet. I had never thought of buffers as part of network-centric warfare before, but since then...

Back to the matter at hand, to the OP good luck with your question. It makes me very appreciative of my employers. They reimburse me for using my cell phone at work (I have to lock the office when I go on the grounds to inspect and repair things and I leave my number on the door), probably in excess of what I actually use (heck it's on an unlimited plan anyway). On the rare occasions they call me out after hours they pay mileage as well as time, and they always apologize for calling and ask if I don't mind, that if I am busy at home they will instead drive from their home in San Antonio to take care of the problem themselves. (We had a little issue this past Sunday, and aside from reimbursement and pay, the boss dropped left me some Coke Zero in the office fridge. Cool!) They are also very flexible on days off and trading off days for work days (this is a small business, they cover the office too sometimes), and this has been a huge help. In return I try very hard not to give them any employee "problems" and go above and beyond to make things work out. And they don't mind if I read Texaschlforum at work as long as the work stuff gets done.