I just wanted to vent about this situation because I find it to be a totally exploitative loophole of labor laws. My gf works as a Server at a restaurant in FL. During the tourism season she makes a pretty decent wage, during the “off season” her hours drop to almost nothing and she is forced to take on part-time work to make bills. On top of that part time work, it is MANDATORY that she be on-call and ready to clock in for certain shifts.
What does being on-call mean? It means you cannot make plans, you cannot be outside of town, you cannot be inebriated on your own time, you have to basically sit at home and be ready to go in to work at a moments notice, including all of the anxiety of getting the call and being told to come in. Her employer gets all of this from her for the low cost of free. I can see the stress it causes her every time she has an on call shift and she is just waiting for the “yes” or “no” from the manager. This also promotes the restaurant to keep a skeleton crew, because if someone calls out or no shows, they have a choice of employees who have to simply be on standby, ready to show up for work on their off day.
I did some research and found that in a lot of states employers are required to pay employees for on-call work, because obviously it is work. I just do not understand why that doesn't seem to be the case in all states.