My employer pays me a small premium for on call work after hours. In practice this has meant taking random calls from the front line staff and providing direction or simply documenting occurrences, not actually having to go into work… Most often I was getting no calls at all.
Most recently however they have added to my on call duties, an “employee check in” procedure for one employee who is working alone… Meaning now I have to always take 3 calls from this employee daily on my on-call days, to ensure the employee is safe. This is very different from what I was doing, it is employers due diligence as part of a “working alone policy” to protect the employee…. However also part of my duties is now taking action when the that employee doesn’t check in, in practice this means I now have to keep track of timelines on my time off (technically on-call time) and ensure I’m not asleep when the driver would be overdue for a check in call, usually around 8pm but potentially later… If the call doesn’t come within 2 hours from the last check in, then I need to reach out to find out why, and take appropriate action, if any is needed. It didn’t seem like much at first but I have found I often need to rearrange my life to ensure I will notice if the call doesn’t come… previously I would just respond to calls, now this is very different.
I feel like they have overstepped their legal boundaries here, but I am not sure what my options are…. Perhaps relevant is that my manager is completely unreasonable, he will consistently lie, cheat, and use me for his own gain to make himself look good, so I don’t expect talking will help, and I don’t want to lose my on call pay completely…. He has never had my best interests in mind at all, quite the opposite… But it’s easy work and the salary is decent (55k = about $27 hourly) so I usually just go with the flow… However the on call pay is not good, only $20 to be “on call” for 3-4 hours in the evening after my shift ends.
Perhaps relevant is that I am salaried employee, I wouldn’t get overtime…. Also I am contract employee without job security, technically I can be dismissed without cause, so I am worried about pushing back too hard… I am also not actually expecting anything to happen to the employee working alone and so the situation i am afraid of will likely never happen… Any advice from this sub or direction to a better one? What would you do?? Thanks!!!