On Call in NY

[MoodSwinger]

I am a salaried emloyee who is scheduled to work 40 hours a week but often times it is way more than that. My concern is, myself and other managers working under the upper management must be on call 24/7 365 days of the year. We have weekends off but we must still be on call to assist the houses we work in. On my day off, If I tell my boss that I cannot be on-call for a number of hours (making her the on-call person) because I may have a doc appt 2 hours away or something.. they make me take personal/vacation time for this. It is my day off! Is there a law about this? I really don't understand that if on my day I have to babysit the phone in case something happens and if I can't do that for any number of hours on my day off that I have to take personal time for this. Is this a common practice? Its absurd! Its leaving with me with no option to live my life on my days off. Any ordinary employee will make appts or other events on their days off and not have to take personal time for it.

[LConnell]

On-Call Work

When you say salaried, do you mean that you are exempt? The terms are not interchangeable. You can read more about exemption at: http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/complian...a_overview.htm

For the on-call work, if you are exempt and even if your time is very restricted, your employer can require you to work the restricted on-call without any additional compensation. It does seem unreasonable that they are docking you personal or vacation pay for the two hours that you are not available. That is a standard practice for some employers in cases where the person is working a partial day. However, to say that standard is in place 24/7 seems unreasonable. You will want to talk with the US Department of Labor (found at the earlier link) in order to learn their position on this matter.