2 ms·

I did on-call for work for 20 years. I just assumed my paycheck needed to cover that hassle. I usually got paid more than other people with similar experience

I did on-call for work for 20 years. I just assumed my paycheck needed to cover that hassle. I usually got paid more than other people with similar experience because my job included on-call and theirs didn't. Overtime isn't necessary if expectations are set up front and the salary is boosted accordingly. But yeah, it makes people feel better if you pay them less overall and then give them overtime when they're on-call. It's also better for the company because then the raises are smaller since they're based on the base salary and not the overtime. Honestly I'd rather just get paid a higher salary with expected on-call hours up-front.

blue039 4y ago
It’s not about “making them feel better”. It’s about wage theft from workers. If you pay me N extra hours, where N is less than the hours I worked on call then you stole from me. Plain and simple. This should be pursued by rabid labor lawyers and interest at the prevailing 30 year rate should accrue on those dollars hourly until they are paid back. The problem is, of course, the law dictating “exempt workers” was written in a time where the only people that would be exempt were executives with actual million dollars golden parachutes. Now, white collar labor is almost universally exempt allowing the state sanctioned theft of millions of dollars a year by corporations who lobby to keep the laws the same, and promoted by “grind culture” immoral bottom-barrel blood-suckers like PagerDuty. It’s bullshit. You’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome. You’ve somehow managed to say stealing from you is okay because they put some nominal amount of unrelated dollars in front of you.
- jedberg 4y ago
  It's not stealing if they tell me up front "you will be on call and we expect you to work at least 10 hours a week outside of normal business hours". And then pay me for my time up front as part of my salary. Someone who is on-call should be exempt from overtime if they're not paid hourly and it was clearly communicated up front. I think that's part that's missing. Most jobs don't make that clear up front.

blue039 4y ago

It’s not about “making them feel better”. It’s about wage theft from workers. If you pay me N extra hours, where N is less than the hours I worked on call then you stole from me. Plain and simple. This should be pursued by rabid labor lawyers and interest at the prevailing 30 year rate should accrue on those dollars hourly until they are paid back. The problem is, of course, the law dictating “exempt workers” was written in a time where the only people that would be exempt were executives with actual million dollars golden parachutes. Now, white collar labor is almost universally exempt allowing the state sanctioned theft of millions of dollars a year by corporations who lobby to keep the laws the same, and promoted by “grind culture” immoral bottom-barrel blood-suckers like PagerDuty. It’s bullshit. You’re suffering from Stockholm syndrome. You’ve somehow managed to say stealing from you is okay because they put some nominal amount of unrelated dollars in front of you.

jedberg 4y ago
It's not stealing if they tell me up front "you will be on call and we expect you to work at least 10 hours a week outside of normal business hours". And then pay me for my time up front as part of my salary. Someone who is on-call should be exempt from overtime if they're not paid hourly and it was clearly communicated up front. I think that's part that's missing. Most jobs don't make that clear up front.