Overtime Compensation

[Guest guest]

Was there not a ruckus in Texas several years ago over paying overtime to

employees, like EMS and Fire, who worked unusual shift schedules? It seems

that a company or a municipality maintained that EMS and Fire were not covered

by the legislation or regulations that provide " usual " hourly workers overtime

compensation.

I seem to recall the OT compensation question may also have involved paying

(EMS?) responders only a buck or so during nighttime hours, but requiring them

to be at a station. Pay would go to the regular schedule if there was a call.

Can someone fill me in? Thanks a bunch.

Bob Tarbet, McGregor

Increasingly ancient paramedic

I'm so old I remember when Donn was born

[Guest guest]

Bob, 

First, I offer my sympathies for being associated with the likes of Donn.....

There have been a couple of ruckuses, one of them I actually got involved in

with a former employer, and it was about 10 to 15 years ago.

We were a rural EMS 911 system. The county that I worked for had issues with

payroll. 1) They tried to catagorize us under the 7k exemption like they would a

firefighter, the hourly rate they paid started at XX and decreased once you hit

overtime. There were other issues, once they realized that changes had to be

made, they wanted to NOT pay us for sleep time, and move us to a standby pay.

Things got nasty every now and then, but they realized the error of their ways

and wrote all of us that were affected a sizable check for the lack of OT, and

apparently, their software was a little outdated, so it would

literally continue

to drop our hourly wage until it was below minimum wage.

There are certain qualifications that must be met to fall under the 7k

exemption. Most notably, they must apply the 80/20 rule. In essence, if 80% of

your day is spent doing something OTHER than firefighting, rescue etc, then you

do not fall under the 7k OT exemption. That's obviously simplifying things, if

you want to carry this on through private email and keep the boring stuff off

here so as not to stop the important conversations like, 'who is REALLY a

medic', drop me a line.

Obviously the issue of our wages falling below minimum wage is a moot

point, tey

can't do that.

THe standby pay was another big hurdle.

Some questions that the county had to answer..

* Is the employee required to remain on premises?

* If allowed off premises, how far may the employee go during on-call time?

* Is more than merely leaving your contact information with your employer

required?

* Is the employee allowed to freely use his or her own time while on-call?

* How often is the employee actually called while on-call?

 

The law requires that the employer pay you if you cannot use the on-call time

effectively for your own purposes. If you are required to remain on site at your

employer's place of business while you are on call, you qualify. If you are

required to remain close to the job while on call, and that area is so

restrictive that it impacts your personal life, you probably qualify. If,

however, you simply must leave contact information should the employer need you,

you likely don't qualify.

 

But, enough of the boring stuff, I am willing the attorneys will weigh in, Wes?

Gene?

Hatfield

" The main part of intellectual education is not the acquisition of facts but

learning how to make facts live. " - Oliver Wendell Holmes

________________________________

To: texasems-l

Sent: Thu, July 14, 2011 10:36:02 AM

Subject: Overtime Compensation

 

Was there not a ruckus in Texas several years ago over paying overtime to

employees, like EMS and Fire, who worked unusual shift schedules? It seems that

a company or a municipality maintained that EMS and Fire were not covered by the

legislation or regulations that provide " usual " hourly workers overtime

compensation.

I seem to recall the OT compensation question may also have involved paying

(EMS?) responders only a buck or so during nighttime hours, but requiring them

to be at a station. Pay would go to the regular schedule if there was a call.

Can someone fill me in? Thanks a bunch.

Bob Tarbet, McGregor

Increasingly ancient paramedic

I'm so old I remember when Donn was born