"3.5.1 Where an employee is called back to work after completing the day's work and after leaving the School for the day, or is called back before the normal starting time and does not continue working until normal starting time, that employee shall be paid for a minimum of 3 hours at the appropriate overtime rate.
3.5.2 This provision applies to days off as well as ordinary working days.
3.5.3 Call backs commencing within the minimum period covered by an earlier call back shall be deemed one call back."
So I would think your entitled to three hours wages if you work on something out of hours. However I've always just fixed things outside of business hours and considered it part of my job.
insane: Do you guys find that when there is a minimum call-out time that people take advantage of it and try get you to spend as much time on the job before they have to pay more than the minimum charge?
depends on the accountability put in place by leadership.
eg. I was in a team of 2 systems engineers (however the title was questionable for my "colleague"). we worked week about. whenever I was on call the number of callouts, and claims made for work done was far less than my offsider.
however, there was no accountability put in place by management and he got away with it for a long time. when there is an on-call arrangement there needs to be a lot of transparency as to what/when/why work was done outside of normal hours. restrict it to business critical needs...not just regular work. he was claiming regular work as on-call overtime which is ridiculous.
but yes, some people will try to push the boundaries and can get away with anything if the leadership isn't there to hold them accountable for their actions.
I was more referring to on-call work for end customers, not internal work. I could think of many ways to defraud my workplace and claim extra call out fees but then I'd be asking to be fired and should be if that was the case. Plus I still have to sleep at night (no pun intended)
scenario: Customer calls up at 4am to look at an issues which takes 5 minutes to fix, then asks you to also do x y and z and stop after 1 hour so that they get the full value from their minimum 1 hour call-out.
Market practice for standby and call-out varies considerably, though there are 4 main approaches taken by a majority of companies:
1. Payment of a weekly allowance when on-call, plus call-out rates 2. Payment of a daily allowance when on-call, which may be a higher daily rate on weekends & public holidays, plus applicable call-out rates 3. Payment of an annual allowance 4. No payment for on-call, but payment of call-out rates
Where an annual allowance is paid, this is typically all-encompassing, and no additional payments are made for call-outs. This approach tends to be better for most employees, except for those who have a very high number of call-outs occuring over the year. This also enables employers to more accurately manage their costs, as there are no fluctuations that result from variables elements to the payments.
Typically where a weekly or daily allowance is paid for on-call, then there is payment for actual call-outs. Minimum payment amounts vary, most commonly either one hour or 3 hours. Call-out rates are typically differentiated on weekends and public holidays, and some employers will pay a higher rate for call-outs made during certain hours (e.g. 11pm to 5am).
It is hard to say whether your employer's current policy is "fair" without considering the actual rates you are paid in comparison with market practice. If your rates are more generous than those of other companies, then you may not be any worse off.
The other thing to consider is when the rate kicks-in; this should be from the time at which the employee leaves their place of residence to attend the call-out, though I imagine some smaller employers may only apply the call-out rate from the time at which the employee reaches the workplace or customer site.
When I started with the company I am still with (3 years ago) I was expected to do after hour support calls without additional form of payment (my low salary was to cover everything). I refused completly and my manager took on the role.
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