Being On Call, Does your station pay you or do not pay you?

[YourVideographer]

Being On Call, Does your station pay you or do not pay you?

I was On Call this past Saturday, I put 4 Hours on my Timecard for being On Call and I noticed today, My Boss took it off.

How does your stations handle On Call for News Photographers?

 

[Cheechako]

Depends upon your contract, or employee handbook.

That being said, your boss "tampered" with your timecard? You should probably have a talk with your HR person about compensation, then bring this "tampering" incident up with them. He/She may **** themselves when they get asked about changing an empolyee's timecard.

 

[oldngray]

A couple things first. The time you put on your timecard, did you perform work for those four hours or were you told to be around your phone if the station needed to call you It sucks to have to be chained to the station during your time off, but if you weren't actively engaged in work, you may not be eligible to get money for time you were told to be on standby.

We have on-call at our place and we don't get paid for being scheduled on-call but there is a guaranteed minimum number of hours to be paid if we do get called.

So if you are in a union, that will determine how/if you are paid and the laws in the state you are working in effect how/if you are paid.

If you were actively performing work, then I doubt any state would have a law that says you wouldn't be paid. If you were working on your own and put in time you'd still have to be paid, although, if the overtime was not authorized you could be liable for discipline, but they'd still have to pay you for work performed.

In short, if you were working you should get paid. If you were told to be available but didn't perform work, you may not be eligible for pay even though you had to work your plans around maybe getting called in.

 

[satpimp]

oldngray lays it out pretty well.

Do you have a contract or do you serve at the whim of the check signers? The new industry standard is a hearty thank you for staying by the phone until you don't.

 

[svp]

Here you are on-call for two weeks straight. First week you are first on-call from midnight Sunday to midnight Sunday then second week you are second on-call. Usually, its Friday and Saturday night when you get called because we don't have an overnight photog those nights. You get called its an automatic 3 hours, even if you only work an hour. Each call out is that way. However, you don't get paid just being on-call. You have to actually be working. Second on-call you only get called out if the first on-call has already been called in and is working.

 

[C St. SW]

Here you are on-call for two weeks straight. First week you are first on-call from midnight Sunday to midnight Sunday then second week you are second on-call. Usually, its Friday and Saturday night when you get called because we don't have an overnight photog those nights. You get called its an automatic 3 hours, even if you only work an hour. Each call out is that way. However, you don't get paid just being on-call. You have to actually be working. Second on-call you only get called out if the first on-call has already been called in and is working.

This is the way it worked at my station. It worked, but it was far to easily abused. With ONE person "required" to be responsible for all call outs, it can get ugly. One person who'd automatically responsible for covering the shift of anyone out on vacation, or sick, on top of their normal shift. All overnight call outs as well.

One weekend I was literally on the clock from 8:00 am Friday to 3:00 am Monday. In that time I covered my normal day shift, someone's Friday night shift, all the Friday/Saturday overnight spot news, another vacation relief shift Saturday and Saturday night, call outs again on Saturday night and vacations relief shifts again on Sunday. I slept a few hours at a time between the overnight call outs on a sofa in the photogs lounge because I was too exhausted to drive home, only to be awakened again within an hour or two. When I protested, all I got was "but YOU'RE on call this weekend!!" I ended up being on the clock for 57 hours straight, 49 of them being overtime. At 3:00 am on Monday morning (5 hours before my normal day shift started) I refused and went home.

Needless to say, the ND was NOT happy on Monday morning when she found out the desk didn't find someone else to help out. Not to mention that I blew a major hole in her OT budget for the entire month in 3 days.

Personally, when you do it this way I believe if you are at beck and call to the desk for this amount of time, you should be compensated to some degree for the "requirement" of giving up ALL of your personal time.

 

[jajack71]

I have only worked at one On Call Station it was KTNV Vegas. About one a month or so everyone got an on call shift. It seemed that every time I was on call a certain photog would always call in....anyway we was paid an extra 100 for the weekend and whatever shift that you was called in for basically you got paid in addition to your own work schedule. Needless to say I made sure that the next two shops I worked in did not have on call shifts.

 

[svp]

C St W,

What you described never happens here. We have a big enough staff that 99% of the time if someone calls in sick, we are just down a photog. Every once in a while the on call photog has to step in and work it but not often. As for weekends, our desk and managers are really good. They only call us for big things, not every fender bender they hear on the scanners. They also keep track of the on call photogs hours worked and once you hit about 12 hours they'll call the second on call for breaking news to let you rest. We have a good system. My only gripe is when I'm second on call, the first on-call is already working both Saturday and Sunday so I become first on call two weekends in a row when there are vacations to cover.

 

[C St. SW]

C St W,

What you described never happens here......They only call us for big things, not every fender bender they hear on the scanners. They also keep track of the on call photogs hours worked and once you hit about 12 hours they'll call the second on call for breaking news to let you rest. We have a good system....

You're pretty lucky in your shop, but I get that from many of your posts in how you've described it.

That extreme happened only that one time. You can bet that weekend didn't repeat itself. It was a combination of a desk totally afraid of missing anything that moved, and me not being flat out insubordinate, which in hindsight, I should have been. I didn't expected it to go that far, and it wasn't about making a point, but it worked. They never abused an on call like that ever again.