21-Dazed and Confused, AND Owed Money says Guru 

Q: 

I work for a rural, hospital based EMS system and, boy, do we have pay issues! We have two stations, one at the hospital, and one "out-county". All of the paramedics in our system work four or five 12 hour shifts per week, but we only get paid for 40 hours. The reasoning of hospital administration is that shifts worked at the out-county station are
"on-call" shifts, despite the fact that the out-county station is the primary ALS response car for the northern part of the county and does all interhospital transers. Most of the paramedics do not live close enough to the out-county station to get to the station and get the rig on the road within the mandated 6 minute response time, so when we do our "call" shifts, we have to go and stay at the station. Some of the paramedics work 24 hour shifts there, for which they are paid for 12 hours, unless they are on calls for more than 12 hours, then they get paid for the number of hours worked. For a scheduled 12 hour call shift, you make 4 hours pay, again, unless you are on calls for more than 4 hours. Additionally, if a paramedic calls off his 12 hour call shift, one of the paramedics from the hospital station goes out to the out-county station to cover the shift, but gets paid the full 12 hours, despite the fact that their partner is still "on-call", so the mandated response time is still 6 minutes. So, you can work a 48 or 60 hour week and only get paid for 40 hours. We have pointed to the federal wage and hour laws regarding overtime to no avail. They keep telling us that they don't have to pay us that way because the out-county station is a "call" shift. They also like to point out that we are "the best paid paramedics in this part of the state"...which is true until you factor in the 8 to 20 hours a week that we don't get paid for! 

From what I read in your  column, it would seem to indicate that they do have to pay us overtime. They stand firm on their position that they don't. Is it any wonder we're dazed and confused?

A:
I used to be of the opinion that if I had a dime for every violation of the FLSA that this column produced I could retire. I wish I had seen your letter first. Then I could retire now. You are right in at least one respects: You have pay issues and your employer is of the mistaken opinion that they can trade a violation here and an infraction there for a "deal" somewhere else. Oh. I don't care if you are the best-paid paramedic on the MIR space station that does not change the law. So, let's look at what the best paid, and presumably the best dressed, paramedics are getting from their employer in the spring fashion line.

There are two types of "call". Being engaged to wait, or waiting to be engaged. If one if engaged to wait, you are being asked to be available during a designated period and to respond when requested. The same is true if one is waiting to be engaged. However, in a case where you are waiting to be engaged, your "on call" status must not be so restrictive that it prevents you from going about the majority of your normal daily activities. This does not appear to apply in your case. Therefore, you are waiting to be engaged, which means you must be paid your regularly hourly rate during any period where you are supposedly listed as "on call". This is often a semantic argument, and by itself, is probably not worth a great deal of attention. Your case is an exception to this generalization because if the "on call" hours are determined to be "hours worked" then this will affect how other hours are treated and this runs into money. So, clarify this issue. You are "scheduled for an "on call" shift, in which case you are required to be able to have the vehicle ready to respond in six minutes. It is unlikely that anyone could meet this requirement consistently. Therefore, given the restrictive nature of this policy, you are in essence required to be on duty. Therefore, hours "on call" are in fact "hours worked", for which you are due compensation at no less than your normal hourly rate and if this results in your being "on duty" for more than 40 hours in any given seven consecutive period any hours over 40 are overtime and must be paid at a minimum of 1.5 times your regular hourly rate. Therefore, under your current payroll system (as you have described it), you are due straight time or overtime for all hours worked in this "on call" status. In addition, any pay policy that applies to one employee must apply to all employees. Therefore, if someone is assigned from another station, they are either "on call" or "on duty" and this designation must apply to both employees. Otherwise there will be questions of whether the employer has violated the Equal Pay provisions of related Federal laws.

You state that your employer "insists" that you are being paid appropriately under the law. I never met an employer who said anything else when faced with questions of this nature and employers are quick to point out how well you are being treated when compared to other agencies and providers. If they are audited by the US Department of Labor, that agency will look at all their pay practices not just the ambulance service and there may be other snakes in the woodpile you are unaware of. At the same time, because you are such a small segment of their operation, thy often simply figure they can get away with these schemes, and no one will notice, which is why people like you contact people like me. Lastly, if this all blows up, they will make some draconian cut in service, and then blame it on the EMS providers, who in a small community will take the heat and may never get a chance to defend themselves. That's the other reason people like you contact people like me. To protect themselves against people like them. I don't think you are that confused (dazed maybe, but I don't think I can speak to that at this juncture). The question is whether you are prepared to do something about it. Where is that nickel?

Top

Back to Q & A

Got a Question of your own?

Home

22- "cut out overtime"

Q:   

A: 

Your admission of responsibility is to be applauded.  Not all that is weird if wrong, but in most cases these exercises are unnecessary and/or misguided.  I have some suspicion this may apply in the case of your agency.  Hospital administrators have a fascination with "eliminating overtime" even when it seemingly serves no purpose.  The issue in scheduling is the costs associated with each pattern created, (# of posts staffed with full time personnel, non wage costs associated with full time vs. part time staff (uniforms, health insurance) and similar maters, etc.  Overtime is not bad just because it is overtime.  However, before you try to convince him you are right, make sure you are.  Since your correspondence did not include several pieces of info that would be required to perform an agency specific analysis, mine is general and based in part on certain assumptions.

Let's begin with the smallest unit of analysis.  A single unit is on duty 24 hours a day using a 24/48.  The smallest number of persons required to staff this unit if everyone shows up as scheduled is six.  Each employee receives the compensation roughly equal to 3328 hours per year.  This figurer is based on a schedule that requires them to work two 24-hour shifts for 2 weeks and then 3 24 hours shifts in week 3.  At $6.00 per hour base, an employee earned annual pre-tax wages of roughly $19,968.  At 8.16 per hour, they make roughly $27,156 (you will wake me when I need to my sorrow for their desperate financial status, particularly those who have completed a demanding course of training such as the "new" 120 hour EMT Course).  Anyway, with 6 employees, an hourly wage of $8.16 and annual benefits cost to the agency of $1,800 per indidivual, keeping one ambulance on duty costs the agency $173,736.  in direct wages and benefits.  To the extent that I did not check and recheck these numbers, they may not be 100% accurate but will do for illustration. 

 The Asst HA demands further overtime reduction so one additional employee is hired.  Again, at current wage levels of 8.16, annual pre-tax wages are $22,064 per employee.  Under the same conditions described above, except with 7 employees, keeping one ambulance on duty costs the agency $167,052 in direct wages and benefits, though there may be additional savings that can be achieved by filling a larger segment of the workforce using part time staff (no benefits cost).  While this may be about the limit of what can be done with pure 24 hour staffing, I have seen schedules that use 24 shifts in some very odd schedule patterns.  Unfortunately, the weirder you make your schedule, the harder it will be to fill when someone leaves. 

 Oh, by the way.  If the schedules I have described don't sound anything like what you have been using, are you sue you are in compliance with FLSA?

 
Top

Back to Q & A

Got a Question of your own?

Home