Bell & Schneider, PLC

"On Call" Equals "At Work"

Employees who are required to be on call after work or on weekends are entitled to overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act, the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled recently.

The employer paid for the time the electric company employees spent responding to actual fire and security alarms, which they had to do within 15 minutes of the alarm, but not for their on-call time. The employees were on call from 4:30 p.m. until 7:30 a.m. on weekdays, and 24 hours a day on weekends. On average, they received three to five alarms per night and frequently had to check their home computers for alarms every 15 minutes.

The court said that even though employees did not actually have to report to the workplace to respond to calls, simply being on call 'deprives employees of the ability to engage in personal activities.' The court dismissed as irrelevant previous decisions that had ruled on-call time as non-compensable.

Consult your lawyer for advise about workplace concerns.

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