Paul Tassin  |  September 29, 2016

Category: Labor & Employment

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On-Call-Laws-in-CaliforniaAn investigation is now looking into whether scheduling California employees for on-call shifts may run afoul of on-call laws in California.

Employers like being able to put employees on call because it allows them flexibility in scheduling – flexibility that translates into lower labor costs.

But that flexibility comes at the cost of imposing on what would otherwise be employees’ personal time.

Employees scheduled to be on call must keep themselves available to work during that on-call shift.

That means they can’t plan on using the time for other activities, such as school or another job. When these employees end up not being called in to work, they get no compensation for having foregone other possible uses of their time.

Those employees with personal responsibilities like child or elder care may be further imposed upon if they need to schedule and pay for someone else to cover those duties for them.

On-Call Laws in California

Workers in California may benefit from legal protections that can mandate compensation for on-call time.

But that determination is highly fact-specific, and not all on-call shifts qualify for compensation.

Generally, an employer must pay an hourly employee for all time that the employee is “under the control of the employer.” On-call time during which an employee is required to remain on the job site is considered compensable time.

On-call laws in California get a little more complicated when an employee is placed on call without having to remain on the job site.

Courts in California faced with this question consider a list of factors that relate to how much control the employer exercises over the employee during that on-call time.

These factors include what sort of geographic restrictions the employer places on the employee, how frequently the employer calls on the employee to work, whether the employee is required to respond in a certain amount of time, how easily an on-call employee can trade their duties with another employee, and how free the employee is to engage in personal activities during on-call time.

For most retail employees scheduled for an on-call shift that will either work or not work in its entirety, these factors may not provide for compensation they can count on.

Proposed Legislation

Efforts to enact new on-call laws in California have been proposed more than once in the state Assembly recently, but these bills have yet to be enacted into law.

The most recent proposed legislation was the Reliable Scheduling Act of 2016. This Act would have required employers of retail, restaurant and grocery workers to give those workers a 21-day work schedule.

Employees would have been entitled to notice of their work schedule seven days in advance of the first shift.

The Act would also have required employers to pay special compensation for any shift for which an employee is scheduled to be on call but for which the employee is ultimately not called in to work.

Similar compensation would have been in order for any shift the employer canceled, rescheduled, or added to the employee’s schedule.

A similar bill, the Fair Scheduling Act of 2015, also failed to make it out of the Assembly last year.

Join a Free California On Call Retail Worker Class Action Lawsuit Investigation

If you worked for a California retail store or employer and were not paid for an on-call shift because it was cancelled or you were not given enough time to report to work, you may qualify to join a free California on call shift class action lawsuit investigation into these potentially illegal employment practices.

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