I don't understand how legally my boss' boss can arbitrarily say we can no longer be any further from work than our homes when we are on call. We are not paid to be on-call, so how can they dictate our location? This is the email I just got:

The email text:
All, I wanted to take an opportunity to make sure everyone is aware of what it means to be on call in NSS. While we haven’t have any issues with this, I just wanted to be clear.

Please read over the attached policy (NSS) which incorporates a base I.S. policy. If you have any questions please discuss with your supervisor and if necessary feel free to contact me.

If you have no issues please sign and return to me by the end of next week.

Person A and Person B I you will be responsible for your team’s forms.

Thanks and let me know if you have any questions.


The attachment text:

Company Network, Security, and Video Operations
OnCall Expectations/Practices
- Adhere to Information Services Off Hours Support Policy (see next page)
- All NSS departments should maintain and publish (via a Public Folder or other means) an on call calendar indicating who is on call and for what period this covers.
- All staff under Network, Security, and Video Operations are expected to be part of on call rotations for specified areas, unless otherwise noted by the Associate Director of Network, Security, and Video Operations.
- Employees assigned to be on call are expected to adhere to the following guidelines:
o Respond to all on call pages received, including numeric only numbers
o Incidents must be responded to within 15 minutes. If the page is not responded to within 15 minutes, the call will be escalated and your supervisor will be contacted.
o You must remain within your normal driving distance of the campus (unless specified differently by the Associate Director of Network, Security, and Video Operations).
o If you need to report to any property to facilitate any on call responsibilities, you are expected to be able to dispatch immediately after it is determined this is necessary. If you cannot, then you must notify your supervisor immediately for an alternate to be dispatched.
o If you are on call and need to be unavailable, you are required to notify your supervisor and make arrangements for someone to back you up, and if necessary, transfer the on call pager to this person.
o You are expected to be able to perform your job functions during your on call shift.
- Compensation for your time on call:
o You will be compensated when performing any work from an on call incident. On call pay begins when you begin work on the issue.
o If you must respond and perform work, you will be compensated per the Information Services Off Hours Support Policy attached to this document
o Your time worked will be overtime or compensatory time, whichever is appropriate for your title. The option to flex your time during the same pay week the on call hours were accrued is available, with prior approval from your supervisor or Associate Director of Network, Security, and Video Operations.


There was a second page, but that was the official work on-call policy that just covered compensation.

 

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Good luck in your new job search SC.

 

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taking advantage.... what profanity

 

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Sounds like on call is just a way of not paying you during time between calls.

Are you salary or hourly?

 

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...sounds like our oncall here...


I've been chewed out for standing in line @ the grocery store when I got a page...and I 'Didn't respond in a timely fashion'.

What am I gunna do, bail outta line, run to the vehicle, speed home/to the office to see if I can resolve it? No. I checked out, went home, chucked the milk and butter in the fridge and then logged in remotely to see what was up.

 

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Consider yourself lucky, at least you get some form of real compensation based on time worked. We can get f'ed over all night for the flat rate bs that is nowhere near proper compensation considering the loss of quality of life especially when it affects family members too.


Many companies are pulling this $%^& today, sadly, because they can. They literally want you to leave so they can either bring someone in at a fraction of the cost of you or just spread the work around and not hire anyone new, ie more savings.


They can dictate these things because they can.

I agree, it is BS!


Now most likely unless you boss is a complete t00l, they will be somewhat understanding and cover your back when something happens. We have international counterparts who heard us talking about leaving the house when we were oncall one day and how that can take sometime to get back home to address an issue and they asked us: "ou leave the house?"

 

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You will be compensated when performing any work from an on call incident. On call pay begins when you begin work on the issue.

I rotate on call for an IT department at a hospital. When I am called for work I go on the clock the moment I am paged. I am on the clock while driving to the hospital and I receive mileage.

 

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I was on-call at my last job but at least I got $30/day even if I didn't get called. Before that I was on-call without that but the other job perks made up for it.

Yep, I told him he was lucky to be getting that.


In my case, many moons ago we got ~15% added to pay for oncall, great deal, a few years later cut in half, worse deal, a few years later cut in half again, dayum!. Now that is it, despite time invested.

 

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