On call with no pay

[crystal106]

Where I work, the RN's are expected to carry a cell phone and be on call 24/7 every 6 weeks. While it does not seem to be that much to ask of us, we feel it is. We live in northern New York State and cell phone service can be spotty in places. This means our travel is limited. I can not attend my daughter's soccer games if they are anywhere near the mountains.

Because we are salaried, they tell us it is part of our job and offer us no compensation other than our regular pay. I just got off call on Wednesday. In the week, I had the phone, I had 30 calls. Some are in the middle of the night and others require us to go to the building to assess an issue. There is no compensation for the calls or going in. They expect us to take time off later in the week which is usually not possible.

I'm wondering if anyone has a similar issue. If anyone is on call like this, could you tell me if you get compensation and what kind of compensation? We are going to write a proposal and need some comparisons so we can see what we should be asking for. We're thinking a dollar amount per call because some weeks are very busy and others are not.

Thanks for your input!

[mofomeat]

Where I work, the RN's are expected to carry a cell phone and be on call 24/7 every 6 weeks. While it does not seem to be that much to ask of us, we feel it is. QUOTE]

Being on call blows chunks at the moon.

For what it's worth, this is standard practice in the IT world. Even an hourly employee (like I was for several years) can be on call, answering to a pager that goes off in the case of equipment failure in the server room, or a phone to answer at whatever ungodly hour of the day or night if a customer remotely shut down his server by mistake, when he/she meant to restart it. What is also common, is those three to nine hours of driving down to the facility, powering on the machine and recovering data from backup tapes is often unpaid.

I know your pain. It sucks.