Is my company doing something illegal?

[Mxylplyx]

Are you free to quit?? Yes. Therefore it's not illegal.

 

[FoBoT]

if you don't like the policy, start looking for a different job, good luck (assuming you are salary)

 

[Scarpozzi]

Are you paid hourly or salaried? If you're salaried, they basically own you...

If you're hourly, you can pretty much charge them for the time that you're oncall.

In my job, I'm salaried and am "always" on call, but they can only put a pager in my hand....not necessarily a telephone. I make it a point not to have a cellphone just because they don't have a way of paying me for one...they can only reimburse me.

 

[Demon-Xanth]

My dad worked for a phone company for a long time, he was on call pretty much september through may. He just got paid overtime when they did call. He could turn down a call, and they'd go to the next person on the list. But then your name got dropped to the bottom. And when half your pay comes from overtime, you want that pay

 

[Sunner]

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
Are you free to quit?? Yes. Therefore it's not illegal.

Now there's a really stupid argument.
"Hey, this workplace is contaminated by radioactive waste, but you can always quit, so it's perfectly legal".

 

[krunchykrome]

People are on-call all the time. Im not sure what line of work you're in, but I remember when I worked retail, I would be on-call all the time. If I was on-call on the weekends, I could not go anywhere or make plans because there was a chance I'd have to come to work.

 

[BoomerD]

I was "on-call" for many years...but unless it was a formal "on-call", no extra compensation...when I had to take the company pager or cell phone home, I got an extra 2 hours of pay per day for making myself available, but in reality, my job required me to be available 24/7 anyway...(I was the ONLY crane operator in the company, although there were 2 other guys who knew how to run the crane in case of emergencies, and they always had the option of an outside crane company)
I don't know of any law that requires them to compensate you for being "on-call" unless you're actually called back to work, (for us hourly wage-slaves) but you salaried-slaves probably get to work extra for free...

 

[mercanucaribe]

They don't call salary "slavery" for nothing.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: I4AT
There weren't really any benefits to it, you'd get paid for at least 1 hours worth of work regardless, so the only time it was really like a bonus was if you got called out for something really simple. Didn't even count towards OT, but most guys are happy just to get more hours.

if i get a call in the middle of the night and am expected to fix anything, i get paid time and a half. and im a salary employee. i have friends that have on call pagers as well, and they get a minimum of hours added for each night. one gets 2 hours extra each night they are on call. not a bad deal if you get no calls. but, theres is OT also.

 

[Riverhound777]

We have something like this at my new job, though I haven't had to do it yet. I think we switch off every few months between Techs. Next month will be my month to be on-call. The help-desk will be routed to my cell after hours. But the thing is, if I do recieve a call, I log it and get payed time and a half, along with the customer getting charged time and a half. My commission goes up as well.

So I don't mind. Plus not many people work after hours, so if something is wrong it is probably major like a server crashing.

 

[Axoliien]

There are laws about having people on call, etc. For example, where I live there is a law that states that if you are given vacation time they cannot ask you to be on call or ask you to work, you must be considered absent the entire time. There is also a local law (county law) that states that if you are on call you must be compensated, and that every individual must be given 8 hours between ending one shift and beginning the next... they had some issues where a local tech company was making people work 12 hours on one day and then beginning them immediately the next day for another 12 hours, so 24 hours straight which is illegal.

Anyways, call your local and ask. You never know.

 

[Cal166]

I am on-call for a week once a month. It was in my job descriptions, now these days we barely get calls in the middle of the night/weekends since we have an operations group in place. At the end of the year our manager grants us a couple of days off..

 

[JRock]

On-Call 24/7, 365... Though sh!t only seems to happen every few months that require I go into the office on weekends or off-hours. There are 3 of us all on-call...

 

[AgaBoogaBoo]

On call doesn't mean you should necessarily have to change the way you do things... just continue life as normal, but with a pager incase you're needed, not much more to it.

How often are you asked to do work while on call? And yes, you are helping the grow, it's not easy to form a team for 24/7 operations all year long in new businesses.

 

[sourceninja]

My wife gets paid to just carry the cell phone (200 a week) and then gets paid hourly for any hour she has to work if she gets an oncall call. This will be overtime if she already put in her 40.

You are getting screwed.

 

[PepePeru]

Originally posted by: Mxylplyx
Are you free to quit?? Yes. Therefore it's not illegal.

:roll:

 

[AdamK47]

If it's a dynamic company then the workers who feel the company is too dynamic need to be dynamic themselves and find a less dynamic company. Dynamic.

 

[Adul]

were I work up to a certain pay grade you get extra pay for each day you are oncall.

 

[OutHouse]

we do a 2 week on, 4 week off pager rotation there are 3 of us. we get paid 33.00 a day for on call and 50.00 for holiday. if we are kept up a lot during the night we are not expected to be at work as normal. if my boss even said something to me about it i would tell him to f*ck off and quit.



EDIT: I would NEVER EVER take a job that requires pager duty and NOT be paid for it. As far as i am concerned when i am on call i am available to work at any given time. my personal life and family life is impacted and i better be paid for it.

 

[eakers]

my bf sometimes works oncall for IT. When he is on call he makes a bit of money per hour (3.something per hour) then if he has to take any calls he gets paid 1.5X his normal wage and if he has to go into the actual workplace it is at a minimum of 4 hours. They go on call for a week once every 6 weeks.

I am not sure if what your company is doing is illegal but I would assume that under those circumstances that your salary would be very very very high to make up for the time.

Personally, I'd find a new job.

 

[Rage187]

I get $100 a week regardless of if I get a call or not

then time and a half for each hour I am on a call.

 

[Steve]

Where I'm currently working each of us on the helpdesk take a turn being on call for a week. I don't think there's any extra compensation because it is part of the job description. I don't know for sure because I am a contractor (in fact we all are at the moment). I can say it was an issue of contention between my agency and the company but they finally came to an understanding.

 

[JeffreyLebowski]

Ahh, I like my job. 7:30-4:30. If something happens outside of then, well you just wait. Though I think it's because my company understands that once work is over, it's family time for many people, and that is one of there major philosophies. Family 1st.

 

[theknight571]

I've been "on-call" since I started my job in 1994.

No extra pay, no extra time off, no complaints.

I suppose it might be different if I got called in more frequently than I am, but I just figured it came with the territory.

 

[PKPunk]

Snap, I have to carry an on call phone for 1 week a month and I get paid 50 bucks a day plus overtime for any calls I take and I get log my time in 15 minute increments. I am still required to come into work ontime the next morning through but with my job I usually only get about 3-4 calls per night and the call usually stop after 10pm.