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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?
This plainly shows how poorly organized your unions are.
This is most likely due to the overall lack of care for the common good so prevalent in the US, under the guise of simplistic interpretations of freedom, free enterprise and self responsibility.
While the US constitution is a monument that has shone through the past centuries and has been an inspiring source of both social and economic progress, it is time to call for its retirement and a renewal of the American social contract.
The US constitution is doubtlessly the oldest constitution still in force. Can you believe it, a nation that has not once felt the need to deeply restructure their political system in over two centuries? This surely shows how inspired the founding fathers were. But let's not forget they were also slavers, valuing colored people at 3/5th of a white person.
Our societies evolve, and the aspirations of Peoples evolve too. Now most advanced nations (except the US) have moved forward into a "market-based, social-oriented economy".
Unfortunately, it will require a much greater downfall of the US might before Americans finally realize this and accept the need for such a profound renovation of their political and social system.
That's too bad, the US gave the rest of the world a lot, but the world can't help against such self-induced demise.
There's a huge fucking difference between the way things were 90 years ago, with child labor and whatnot, and the way they are now. Insisting that unions are necessary in the same capacity is not just provably wrong, but also stupid and ignorant.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.