I know managers can require you to stay on-site during paid breaks but if they know it’ll be hours before they actually need you then you should be allowed to leave during that break.

For context, my job involves working for about an hour at a time in a rotation of 20 other employees. Sometimes the schedule for that day works out in such a way that any individual might only be needed for 2hrs out of 10 that day. During our paid lunch break we’re allowed to leave but outside of this allotted time we’re required to be onsite (parking lot, break room, walk around outside etc) even though we’re completely unable to perform any work until the time we’re scheduled for.

We absolutely don’t need as many employees as we have but the client we work for specifically requested this many so this is what we have.

I think we should be allowed to leave the premises (same as we do for lunch) because we’re not needed, our absence can’t possibly cause any detriment to productivity or the fulfillment of the contact we’re on, and we’re not paid enough for our time anyway so if we’re not gonna get paid more we should be given more liberal use of our time.

I explained this to my coworkers and some agreed but some actually started defending our employers by saying stuff like, “we’re paid to be here” or “if they wanted they could just start adding work”

1. I think we’re paid to do a specific job and if it was possible to do it remotely then we’d be doing that. Being here physically is just a prerequisite to doing the job, not the actual job assignment.

2. We’re performing the job perfectly and fulfilling every request of the client, any extra work would be coming from our employers not the clients and wouldn’t be necessary.

What do you guys think? Should I just be grateful for the light workload or am I right to try and reclaim as much of my time as possible?