Work 24, get paid for 16

NomadicMedic

NomadicMedic

I know a guy who knows a guy.
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I can't believe that this is really a legal thing.

If I am working a 24 hour shift, at the station, wearing a uniform, NOT FREE to do whatever I want, I would expect to get paid for every minute of my time.

I'm blown away that EMTs will work a 24 hour shift and only get paid for 16 of them if there's no call during the 8 hour downtime.
 
Some places the EMTs are desperate for work and will do anything, including very stupid things like work for free or work for really crappy agencies that do stuff like that.
 
One of the quirks in employment law/regulation I found a few years ago was that if you're on a 24 hour shift, they can provide for 8 hours of "sleep time" which is unpaid unless you're on a call or posted out. If they completely remove you from service for meal periods, that's an additional 3 hours they don't have to pay you for. So, a 24 could mean 13 paid hours. Since removing a crew completely from service during 1 hour meal periods is unrealistic, the 24 hour shift becomes a 16 paid, 8 unpaid shift. Make sure you keep track of your time on calls during sleep time as that may have to be paid at an OT rate.
 
This is what happened to me while I was in San Antonio, which is saturated with lowly IFT companies, and I WAS desperate for a job. But I had that job for 4 weeks, and used that extra line on my resume to get my foot in elsewhere. Never looked back except when I needed a laugh. I will never stoop to those conditions again, now that I know it can be that bad.
 
In the pre-cellphone days (yes those days existed), a simple random 911 call from a payphone strategically timed disrupted the sleep down time ensuring everyone got paid for their hours. Just sayin...
 
As a non-American I'm amazed by the general poor holiday provision, and that some states don't even have to give their employees lunch breaks. Or this whole '90 days before you qualify for benefits' thing....
 
man that's crazy, I have never been in a situation where they didn't pay me, matter of fact the fire dept I was with actually gave us an extra hour during daylight saving, if you are on duty you should get paid no matter if you are sleeping or not, but the city I worked for did use the fact that we slept to not give us equal pay with the cops, we fought for years for equal pay and the city said well y'all sleep at night, ha not always, but if they are not paying you to be in bed, does that mean you can invite a female to join you in bed, why not, your not getting paid and if I was at home, there is a good chance a female would be in bed with me
 
I gotta love the way you think, However they NOW have pre-paid cell phones and the poor homeless people sure do get lonely.....:rolleyes:
 
My old ambulance company used to do this... and they may still do. We would work 24's or 48's and they would give us a 5 hour down time (1700-2200 and 0000-0500 depending your shift) if I remember the times correctly that was unpaid. During that down time you could get some sleep or even go home (as long as you lived within 15 minutes of the station) and if you got a call within that "down time" period you would get OT for the 5 unpaid hours. The 24's went all that bad but the 48's could be a little rough depending on how much sleep you got.

The fire department where I was a seasonal also used to do this (I never experienced this as my first season was this year). They have since done away with it back in 04/05ish I think (probably wrong) and this was 72's and it was from midnight to 0500 where you didn't get paid. Now if you got a call in that time frame you would get paid (unsure if OT or straight pay), the firefighters would call it earning your nickel if you got that wake up call. Again this isn't done anymore (I think the union fought it) and now you get paid the whole 72 hours.
 
CALEMT said:
My old ambulance company used to do this... and they may still do. We would work 24's or 48's and they would give us a 5 hour down time (1700-2200 and 0000-0500 depending your shift) if I remember the times correctly that was unpaid. During that down time you could get some sleep or even go home (as long as you lived within 15 minutes of the station) and if you got a call within that "down time" period you would get OT for the 5 unpaid hours. The 24's went all that bad but the 48's could be a little rough depending on how much sleep you got.

The fire department where I was a seasonal also used to do this (I never experienced this as my first season was this year). They have since done away with it back in 04/05ish I think (probably wrong) and this was 72's and it was from midnight to 0500 where you didn't get paid. Now if you got a call in that time frame you would get paid (unsure if OT or straight pay), the firefighters would call it earning your nickel if you got that wake up call. Again this isn't done anymore (I think the union fought it) and now you get paid the whole 72 hours.
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We worked 96 and got paid for 76 (no pay 0000-0500). If we had sleep interrupted for an official reason, the whole 5 hours was paid at OT (getting our 'nickel').... Which was a whopping $60 total.

I posted this on the wrong thread earlier.
 
Considering I just did a 48...I'm so very glad my FD is going to pay me for all those hours, didn't matter that the first night I had 4 calls after midnight and the second night I didn't have any, still got paid the same. Because you know, it's not like we have any control over whether dispatch decides to send us a call overnight or not...
 
Schaefer ambulance in LA county does this. I hated it
 
akflightmedic said:
In the pre-cellphone days (yes those days existed), a simple random 911 call from a payphone strategically timed disrupted the sleep down time ensuring everyone got paid for their hours. Just sayin...
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or just a nice handshake earlier in the day with a local deputy who just happens to request ems Standby for something and than cancel us just a few minutes after dispatch.
 
This would be a deal breaker for me. I wouldn't even consider working anywhere that didn't pay me 100% of the time I was at work. I understand the necessity of starting off at some of these places for experience, but it stinks of shady business practices to me. Wages are one thing, but being required by your job to be present somewhere without any sort of compensation? No thank you.
 
Dirty...
 
Honestly, when places say this is how they pay, I politely inform them I am n8t interested and proceed to tell everyone about it.
 
Only can blame the people willing to accept this as "ok" and work for these companies.

I'm guessing the paid hours are close to minimum wage too? I would work a non-related ems job until I found one that treats their employees decent. But that's just me.
 
Chewy20 said:
Only can blame the people willing to accept this as "ok" and work for these companies.
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As was in my case, I am sure a good number of those same people are the ones that didn't know better. Gotta start somewhere. You can then blame those people if they fail to take initiative to progress to something bigger and better.
 
When I started most of the local companies paid the 16 for 24 hr. shift. You got paid while you we on a call and if you were out 3 or more hours they paid you for the full 8 hrs. There were some SLOW rides back to the station if you were close to the 3 hours.
 
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