I'll try to lay this out as clear as possible so there is no confusion. I work for a stemcell research and development company that stores goods in a number of fridges, freezers, and LN2 tanks. If these lose temperature, a lot of money in goods could be lost so it is necessary for around the clock monitoring to ensure that doesn't happen.
The issue is, when we are given the phone that rings when the system detects a temperature go out of range, we are expected to answer and if action is needing to be taken we need to drive to work, punch in, then take care of any issue.
Is this some kind of violation? They told us we shouldn't be more than an hour away from work. I used to work in health care and this sounds a lot like being on call. If that's true, shouldn't we be getting paid when we have the phone? Just looking for some insight into this and any help is appreciated.
Edit. Yes I'm in the US and I am an hourly employee