Wednesday focus: The workplace

Can a company legally require you to be no more than an hour away when on call, especially without additional pay?

On-call regulations look at whether an employer’s constraints on workers are so onerous that they should be paid. Requiring you to be no more than an hour away doesn’t fall into that category, said Irv Miljoner, who heads the Long Island, N.Y., office of the U.S. Labor Department.

One of the key questions is whether you are allowed to use your time for your purposes. If you are, that’s generally not considered to be working in an on-call situation, Miljoner said.

Section 785.17 of the Code of Federal Regulations says this about being on call: “An employee who is not required to remain on the employer’s premises but is merely required to leave word at his home or with company officials where he may be reached is not working while on call.”

By the way, this issue would be moot if you were an exempt employee rather than an hourly employee. Hourly employees have to be paid for all the time they work. But exempt employees, or those that are exempt from overtime, could be on call 24 hours a day without consequence.

PAID VACATION? If an hourly employee resigns, effective in two weeks, does the employer have to pay her for unused vacation time?

The answer depends on your vacation policy. Some companies have written policies that make a resignation tantamount to a vacation forfeiture; once you resign, you give up any paid time off. While that policy may strike some people as unfair, it’s perfectly legal as long as the employers post the policy or provide something to employees in writing ahead of time.

While it is true that nonexempt employees have to be paid for all the time they work, vacation is a different issue. That is time earned for fulfilling certain company requirements. And once employees meet those requirements, companies have to pay the time earned, unless the policy says a resignation cancels that obligation.

Unless your policy spells that out, you may have to pay the employee her vacation.

Vacations aren’t mandated by law but once companies establish a policy, they have to live up to the terms. Otherwise, at the aggrieved employee’s behest, your state’s labor department may come calling.

Newsday