I have a question reguarding On Duty Waiting Time, Off Duty Waiting Time, and On Call. I recently resigned from a company where I worked 63 hours a week "on call" from home. I did not have a pager, just a cell phone that the office phones were forwarded to. I would receive calls at all hours of the day and nignt. In a sense I would act as a receptionist, taking messages and answering questions, as well as my normal Emergency Call duties. I was told by my supervisor when I complained about the frequency of the calls that there was no way for me to charge for a 5 minute phone call, even if it had interrupted my meals or sleep. I was also instructed that if I had long waits between the time the emergency call was placed and the time the call was finished, I was not to charge for that. I was only to charge for the actual time worked.

Would this be considered on duty waiting, off duty waiting or simply on call? I was limited in the things I could do in my time at home, because I had to maintain cell reception and be near an internet connection at all times. This made leaving home in rural Arkansas almost impossible.

Any thoughts??

For federal rules only, there are several DOL regulations affecting on-call. Some effects hours worked, and the rest effects regular-rate-of-pay. State law can be more restrictive then federal law. I have no idea what rules (if any) Arkansas has on this subject.

- Employees who must be on-call on the employer's premises or close enough to seriously curtail their use of the time for their own purposes must be paid for the time spent on-call. But employees who merely have to leave word where they can be reached are not working while on call. (29 CFR 785.17).
- Employees must be paid for unproductive time if that time is spent for the employer's benefit (29 CFR 785.7).
- If an employee has been called back to work, you must also pay for his travel time because his time is no longer under his own control once he receives the call back to work. If he works from home, only the time actually spent working has to be paid for. (29 CFR 785.33-785.41).
- The regular hourly rate of pay of an employee is determined by dividing his total remuneration for employment . . . in any workweek by the total number of hours actually worked by him in that workweek for which such compensation was paid. On call pay causes the regular rate of pay to change. (29 CFR 778.109)

http://www.dol.gov/dol/allcfr/ESA/Title_29/Chapter_V.htm
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In your specific case, you would probably file a wage claim with state DOL. It might work. It might not. The truth is that there is no one working for federal or state DOL that cares even a little bit what either of our opinions are. On-Call is a fairly "grey" area. Federal DOL tends to set a pretty high bar, although what you describe is at least ball park on what they describe as possible.