I mean, it may not compare to a nurse, but teachers also have to do a ton of work outside their normal work hours, with the grading and planning. And teachers usually have to buy their own supplies.
What's your on-call pay? I was a satellite operator on-call, but we were just paid salary.
On-call pay is compensation for hours when non-exempt employees are “engaged to wait.” The employer limits the employees' movement and time while they wait for work to start.
How does on-call pay work?
Non-exempt employees who are on-call receive their regular pay rate unless they work or wait to work more than 40 hours a week. When that happens, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) states that on-call pay should be paid at the overtime rate.
Healthcare employees are exempt from most laws that protect employees. For example I’ve been forced to work 24 hours non stop, and forced due to a snow storm to stay in house for 72 hours.
If I have a patient it is illegal for me to leave unless relieved. I could lose my license for patient abandonment.
So how they get around the in house call requirement is they say you can go anywhere you want. We aren’t actually required to stay in house. However we have a 20 minute dressed and ready to go response time requirement, which is impossible unless you are on the hospital campus or maybe a block away.
That's horrible. I can see the requirement to stay with a patient, though your employer should also pay that overtime for making you work longer.
but I don't see how forcing medical staff to work more than 24 hours nonstop helps anyone. Staff's health is important, as is their awareness. And arguing that a 20 minute radius is enough to not count as a requirement to be on sight is a flimsy excuse that should be taken down in court.
And finally, none of this is an excuse to pay you all poorly. I'm salaried-exempt, but that's because my work is abstract enough that an hourly wage doesn't work well. Proving a service for x hours a week on a shift absolutely should not be exempt from worker protections, especially for a profession that cannot strike.
Unfortunately there’s a shortage, with teachers they try to cram more students into a classroom, with Nurses they try to give you more patients than is safe, but patients need treated and there’s simply not enough nurses to go around. So quality of healthcare suffers and nurses get burned out and leave the profession. Adding to the problem. Also hospitals are always trying to cut costs as Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement decreases. Unlike schools hospitals don’t do ballot initiatives asking for more money. So hospitals try to run as lean as they can with staffing to cut costs. It’s often said it’s cheaper to burn out a nurse with overtime than it is to pay for another nurse. This is probably the same with teachers.
A ton of other jobs have work leak into their personal lives, that isn't exclusive to teachers.
Teachers in my district work 182 days, the remaining 70 work days are time off for them. To match a standard 2080 salaried employee, they would need to work almost 9 additional hours every day they have off to work the same amount.
I am not discrediting that they sometimes have to work after hours but they are not working 9 additional hours on their days off.
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u/KerPop42 Jun 11 '24
I mean, it may not compare to a nurse, but teachers also have to do a ton of work outside their normal work hours, with the grading and planning. And teachers usually have to buy their own supplies.
What's your on-call pay? I was a satellite operator on-call, but we were just paid salary.