Minimum Pay for Being “On-Call”

In Part 3 of the “3-hour rules”, I look at the requirement for “Minimum Pay for Being On Call”

The new rule taking effect in January 2019 states:

“An employer must pay an employee wages equal to the employee’s regular rate for three hours of work if the employee is on call to work and the employee,

(a)  is not required to work**; or

(b)  is required to work but works less than three hours, despite being available to work longer.”

**NOTE “is not required to work” means they do not receive a call.

This On-Call change only requires an employer to pay an employee a minimum of three hours of pay during a twenty-four hour period beginning at the start of the first time during that period that the employee is on call, even if the employee is on call multiple times during those twenty-four hours.

 Example: The employee is on call from 5 pm to 8 am. During this time, they get 2 calls and work a total of 2.5 hours. You would only owe them a total of 3 hours pay for the night, not 3 hours pay for each of the calls.

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