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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?
I can speak from second-hand experience (my mom is a nurse) that nurses get paid when they are "on call", even if they are never called in. This was back in the 90's though.
"I'm not sure I like the fugnutish tone you used in your post!" -RogL (608926)-
Because the government is the only one still hiring?
Your joke of the day is that since you're at a university, you're a "government" institution, and as such a whole host of government regulations don't apply to you (because anyone trying to sue has to get government permission to sue the government, or savvy legislators specifically exempted themselves).
For example:
- Your legislature probably made it so every government employee is salaried and overtime-exempt, from the secretaries on up. Either you're limited to only 20 hours a week and get no benefits, period, or you are exempt and get benefits but also get fucked over for "free" overtime regularly.
- There are probably any number of OSHA type regulations they don't have to follow.
- You probably have to have all sorts of permissions in order to take on any outside work (yes, I've known someone who had to get her boss's permission to go take a seasonal part-time job at Gamestop during the christmas sales season so that she had some extra cash).
That being said, employers will find any way possible to screw the employees and the system. Government regulations on what you get for being full-time? Oh, you're a "contractor." Government regulations regarding truth in hours? They'll demand "on call" time and "immediate response" and refuse to honor billing when they call you in, or insist that you "make up" the overnight hours by going home early.
Try going to work at Reynolds & Reynolds or the place that bought them, Universal Computing Systems. If you want to know how badly a place can fuck their employees, UCS is where you want to look at. Draconian "employment conditions" hidden in the "employee manual" (which isn't allowed to leave their building; sneaking one out is a firable offense!) that you don't find out until you "accept" a "contract" with them and aren't allowed to read beforehand (such as a 3-year "noncompete clause" worded so broadly you'll be lucky to find work as a Kroger checkout clerk if you ever leave), ugly restrictions on so much as managing to use the restroom, and that's just the tip of the iceberg.