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Should You Be Paid For Being On Call?
theodp writes "Fortune's Dear Annie takes on the case of poor Dazed and Confused, an independent webmaster who's expected to be on call for his client at all hours of the day and night, but doesn't get paid for being on call, only for the 40 hours a week that he's in the office. Surprisingly, Annie throws cold water on the contractor's dreams of paid OT, citing these pearls of wisdom from an attorney who's apparently never had the 'privilege' of being a techie on call: 'Many companies see the on-call issue as analogous to a fire fighter's job. Most of the time, a fire fighter is off-duty but on call, hanging around the firehouse, cooking, sleeping, or whatever. What that person really gets paid for is the relatively small, but crucial, amount of time he spends walking into a burning building with an ax. A webmaster, likewise, has slow times and busy times.'" What on call policies are you used to working with and how should it work in an ideal world?
My experience, working with an education union in Oregon.
Suppress wages - I did IT, the school district was bound to make me an hourly worker by labor agreement with the Union, the Union that represented us was the union for school workers, janitors, secretaries, cafeteria workers. So yes, my wages were suppressed, I couldn't leave the union, couldn't get step pay raises because of education or certification, just by putting time in.
Defend the inept - Having the Union defend a coworker that threatened other coworkers (he talked about bringing a gun in if we didn't treat him better, to a school), tell me not to testify against another Union member who was accused of surfing child p0rn on an elementary school computer, oh it was grand.
Petty crap during "bargaining" years - Teachers union are "bargaining" so they all park in front of school district office, where a number of members of another union work, vandalize cars during work hours. I worked in administration for years and they never did anything like that.
Strong arming members - No secret ballots, blacklisting people who vote against what the union wants for a contract or strike vote, pressure to vote in State and Federal elections for the union's preferred candidate, etc. If you belong to a Teachers Union in the US, just try and vote against what the union wants, and they know who you are because you had to show your union card when you turn in your ballot.