Call at home pay?

[mabarker]

What is the name of your state? MN

My husband is an hourly employee. He gets many calls at home from his company on his time off. When the company had previous owners he was compensated for the calls.

The company has changed ownership and he is told "it is not their policy to pay for calls at home". He is also periodically "on call" but recieves no pay for that either. He also can not submit cell phone bills for reimbursement.

Is this legal?

 

[pattytx]

There are no legal requirements to reimburse an employee for business-related expenses. If you itemize deductions on your 1040, you may be able to claim them as unreimbursed business expenses, so keep careful records.

Regarding "on-call", whether your husband needs to be paid additional pay depends upon whether his activities are substantially curtailed during the on-call period, how often these calls occur, and whether he has to go to the place of employment to handle problems. Can you provide this information?

 

[mabarker]

The calls come at all different times of the day & middle of th night. The plant runs 24/7.
The calls can be anywhere between 5 minutes to 30 minutes. And many times there will be back & forth calling.

He only gets paid if he is required to go in to fix a problem himself. Otherwise, it is not policy to pay for phone calls.

 

[cbg]

That is *probably* legal, but without knowing how restricted he is (i.e., does he have to stay by the land phone and return calls within 5 minutes; can he pretty much go anywhere he wants, get calls via pager or cell phone and return them within an hour, or somewhere in between) it is impossible to say for certain.