Are there any laws governing manditory on call pay for city workers that are required to report within one hour of being called.required to carry a cell phone.no drinking.must be on call seven days at a time.Thanks

§ 785.17 On-call time.

An employee who is required to re-main on call on the employer’s premises
or so close thereto that he cannot use the time effectively for his own purposes is working while ‘‘on call’’. An employee who is not required to re-main on the employer’s premises but is merely required to leave word at his home or with company officials where he may be reached is not working while on call. (Armour & Co. v. Wantock, 323 U.S. 126 (1944); Handler v. Thrasher, 191 F. 2d 120 (C.A. 10, 1951); Walling v. Bank of Waynesboro, Georgia, 61 F. Supp. 384 (S.D. Ga. 1945))

In here your travel to work, on the call, is considered worked hrs, which normally is not in 785.35

§ 785.36 Home to work in emergencysituations.

There may be instances when travel from home to work is overtime. For ex-ample, if an employee who has gone home after completing his day’s work is subsequently called out at night to travel a substantial distance to per-form an emergency job for one of his employer’s customers all time spent on such travel is working time. The Divisions are taking no position on whether travel to the job and back home by an employee who receives an emergency call outside of his regular hours to report back to his regular place of business to do a job is working time.

ArmyRetCW3 has provided an very informative cite. Based on your post, my best guess is that your time is not restricted enough in order for the "waiting" to be compensable. You should still be paid for any time doing actual work. So once you receive a call and begin "work", that would be when the clock starts again. The fact that you are not permitted to drink alcohol is not enough restriction in the eyes of DOL. And the response time of 1 hour is viewed in the same vain.

I have to admit, it scares me how many people believe they should be paid for on-call time on the basis of the fact that they are not allowed to drink alcohol during that time.

I have to admit, it scares me how many people believe they should be paid for on-call time on the basis of the fact that they are not allowed to drink alcohol during that time.

Not to steal the thread but how does that work for management positions that "technically" always have to be on call? In other words, let's say I'm a manager at some 24/7 place. Any incident that occur, day or night, I have to be informed of, meaning a phone call. Yet, I am a salaried employee. What benefits do I have for this type of status? (California btw)

If you are an exempt employee, there are no circumstances whatsoever in which you need to be paid anything over and above your regular salary.

Your on-call restrictions as regards alcohol are between you and your employer.

thank you, ArmyRetCW3 for the facts, without personal opinion.also thanks for your service to or county.you are a wealth of knowledge!