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A friend/neighbor asked for advice on California labor rules regarding permanent "On Call Status" at the local Hospital 24 hours a day and 7 days a week... including Holidays and Days Off.
The only time he is not on call is when he has approved vacation time off.
His wife has had it because work calls anytime... day, nights and weekends... Dad has had to leave or miss many family activities... Maybe 3 times a week he will have to drop everything and go back to work.
Dad's position is his job allows his wife the freedom to stay home and you do what you have to in support of your family... especially these days.
He is salaried, so my understanding is that professionals in salaried positions are often exempt from California labor laws...
Can anyone offer advice?
PS... I told him to resign and he said he would forfeit unemployment by resigning.
I worked in management for quite some time, and my understanding is that if the position isn't covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act they can mandate "on call" as a job requirement:
He is salaried, so my understanding is that professionals in salaried positions are often exempt from California labor laws...
Doesn't sound right. He should have some days that he is completely off work and not on call.
You can't just make someone "salaried" in order to use and abuse them. I believe there are some requirements that have to be fulfilled in order to be a salaried employee.
Usually in my experience, people who are on call are also paid a certain amount per hour while they are on call. I don't think they would be turning their life over to their job unless it was one hell of a job.
Thanks guys for the input... I think my advice to get another job might be the only option...
It's kind of Ironic that by law, Registered Nurses also part of the medical field are not exempted employee's even if they earn over 100k a year... many get 50% pay if they are on call and have to respond in 1 hour.
City emergency crews get on call pay with the reasoning the employee's can't stay home and get drunk watching a game if they are being paid.
Other professionals appear to be exempt... I would guess he's in the 75 to 80k range.
I know the only employee's with on call pay where he works are Registered Nurses... the Doctors are on call, but generally have the option to refuse since they don't actually work for the hospital...
Sounds like it's time to tell the wife it's either live with it or find something better.
I worked in management for quite some time, and my understanding is that if the position isn't covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act they can mandate "on call" as a job requirement:
I don't specifically know if California can override these requirements, however I doubt it.
Thanks for the link... I forwarded it to him and he said he doesn't meet any of the requirements for exempt status.
One interesting note I found in reading the link is Registered Nurses not in a supervisory position are not exempt per CA law... regardless of pay... I guess the Nurses have a very strong lobbying group
as you most likely know; each states laws vary. however, from personal experience and others i know, salaried positions allow companys to require more return(work hours, charity events, addtional responsibilities as they work through restructuring) for their monetary investment. As for Cali, i couldnt tell you, but you can online to your states labor laws.
Here's my take on this situation though; you have to be very careful about how you approach management about this. from a employers view they will only hear an employee complaining about thier job, and they will undoubtedly respond with "we can always find someone else", especially with high unemployment. I suggest presenting it to them as a beneficial situation(less chance of medical errors, minimizes litigation potential and cost, better care for your patients) and use monetary examples where ever possible, such as finding out the avg. cost of medical malpractice lawsuits. and while you do this always bee searching for a new job
this is a medical job in a hospital environment, this is not a 9 to 5 job right?
This is a facilities job in a Hospital Environment... they were paying him per Diem wages at one time... he would work 60 hours in one week and 25 the next...
Management called him in about 10years ago and offered him a full time position based on 40 hours a week with some of that time being after hours/weekends. With the last round of cutbacks... it's no different than anywhere else... the people remaining have to do more...
So no, it's not a punch in at 6 am and out at 2:30 kind of job...
As I understand it, comp time was figured in to balance but CA law no longer allows Comp Time for non government positions... I could be wrong?
I know people that are always on call... it's normally the owner of a small business... lots of industry has on call duties... from my experience, they normally rotate that responsibility among the rank and file.
I see how it would eventually wear a person down to never have an "Off Day" and then add to it family responsibilities...
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