On call working - payments question. WDYT?

Hootie19

My husband's work has fairly recently introduced on call working. It was agreed that for doing this this they would be paid an extra 20% of their salary. However, the company refused to pay the guys this as 20% of their *annual* salary, and decided they'd pay it as 20% of their *monthly* salary, their argument being that due to the number of people doing the on calls, some months they wouldn't have to do it and why should they be paid when they're not working?

So it was agreed that they'd get a payment each month they did an on call, and it would be 20% of their monthly pay.

They started off doing one week on call in every five weeks. Since this was introduced, some people have left and not been replaced, meaning they are now doing one one call in every four weeks. This is the first month that this has happened - due it being a long month, my husband has done two on calls this month, and his employers are refusing to pay him two lots of on call money.

It will work out that each of the guys will do at least one, if not two, months of double on calls.

The men are revolting . They feel that if they do two lots of on call in a month, they should be paid twice. Work are arguing that they agreed to only be paid one on call fee a month. But they agreed to that when there were enough people doing it that they wouldn't have to do one on call in four.

What do you think they should do? Just accept that some months they are doing work for free, or fight their case? (In my husband's case, we're not talking a small amount of money - it's working out to around £500 a time!)

DVardysShadow

Hah! Nobody thought it through. Not employees and not employer.

I think that it makes sense to pay them in proportion to the amount of on call they do. Whether 20% of a month's pay is right, I don't know. Both sides need to negotiate towards that position

Hootie19

Bit more information, in case it's relevant.

His job is Data Centre Engineer, looking after a lot of servers that customers are using or have access to 24/7. If the servers go down, they have to either try to fix the problem from home via a remote connection, or go to the data centre (two main ones, each about 25 miles away from where we live). It has been known for them to have to go to Holland to fix problems (but I'm not sure of the intricacies of this - I know one day he got as far as being checked into a flight at Heathrow before being called back as someone had fixed the problem remotely!).

They are normally just on the end of the phone though. The company has recently installed a load of new servers, which means that the number of calls they're getting has increased dramatically. DH was called three times in the middle of last night, for example, and took several calls over the weekend, as well as other calls during the week, although not many after midnight.

Does this make a difference?

DVardysShadow

Hootie19 wrote: »

Bit more information, in case it's relevant.

His job is Data Centre Engineer, looking after a lot of servers that customers are using or have access to 24/7. If the servers go down, they have to either try to fix the problem from home via a remote connection, or go to the data centre (two main ones, each about 25 miles away from where we live). It has been known for them to have to go to Holland to fix problems (but I'm not sure of the intricacies of this - I know one day he got as far as being checked into a flight at Heathrow before being called back as someone had fixed the problem remotely!).

They are normally just on the end of the phone though. The company has recently installed a load of new servers, which means that the number of calls they're getting has increased dramatically. DH was called three times in the middle of last night, for example, and took several calls over the weekend, as well as other calls during the week, although not many after midnight.

Does this make a difference?

Certainly the amount of work makes a difference. I think it would be more appropriate to pay them a retainer for being available at home and a higher amount if site attendance is required or for attendance to a problem from home between 2300 and 0700.

And because of how intrusive it could be, 2 weeks of that in a month can be quite disruptive fro home life for family and partners

AlwaysWorking

My OH has a similar role. He is on call one week in 6 and gets paid a flat fee for each hour he is on call (e.g from 6pm - 8am). He then gets an hourly rate for each hour that he has a call...so obviously the more calls he has, the more money he gets paid. I think that's a fairer system as obviously some nights/weeks are quieter than others.

I think your husband and his colleagues need to speak to the company and renegotiate the pay as the current system doesn't seem to work.

jim_walton

You should be payed so much per hour for every hour on call..Plus a minimum number of hours pay per call out .Also the working time directive comes into play..You are allowed 11 hours uninterrupted rest every 24 hours.. Being on call counts as working time.. If you get called out at night and don't get 11 hours uninterrupted then you take off the time owed.Usually before the next shift starts, although certain circumstances may dictate that you take at the earliest opportunity..A good employer will pay you for this owed time a bad one might not..