When you hire certain employees for on-call services, questions often arise about wages and hours.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA) addresses the issue of on-call employees and when they get paid for their time along with when they do not.
Whether the employee has to stay on the work premises during the on-call work period influences whether the worker gets paid for the hours spent on call. The FLSA views the on-premises restriction as the determining factor that the worker must be paid. It does not matter whether the worker is reading a book, chatting on the phone or playing a video game. The factor of being required to stay on the premises takes priority.
Sometimes employees are on-call during their free time, but there are no restrictions that employees must abide by other than to be reachable by cell phone. The employees are fairly free to do what they want, whether it involves maintenance around the home, spending time with children or watching television. In this type of situation, the employer would not have to pay the employee for on-call hours. The exception would be when calls from the employer are so frequent that the employee really has no use of free time. Then, once again, you must pay the employee for the on-call hours.
Despite the standards set by the FLSA, various court cases have arisen that dispute on-call wages and hours. One noteworthy case was the Mendiola v. CPS Security Solutions, Inc. heard by the Supreme Court in California that ordered California employers to pay for employees’ sleep time. Another case was Jones-Turner v. Yellow Enterprise Systems, LLC where the district court ruled based on the FLSA and Kentucky law that employers did not have to pay ambulance workers for on-call meal times.
If you have questions about paying for time worked on-call, consult with one of our attorneys at Stephen Hans & Associates . Our firm has decades of experience assisting clients with litigation related to wages and hours laws.