I am sorry, but you were not trapped in that job YOU CHOSE freely. I worked in an industry with heavy travel and danger. The divorce rate was high. When my wife said she did not feel like we were married cause I was gone most of the time I found other employment. That is how life works for free people who are ambitious. I would suggest that the culture is the problem more than employment. Those who are unhappy with their present employment should quit whining and/or risking their marriages and find other career. That is life friend. Giving monopolistic power to corrupt union bosses in collaboration with democrat party bosses is undermining our workplace...although, the union part has shrunk dramatically over the years as employers wisely find other solutions like moving overseas.
“Giving monopolistic power to corrupt union bosses in collaboration with democrat party bosses is undermining our workplace...although, the union part has shrunk dramatically over the years as employers wisely find other solutions like moving overseas.”
I have been a member of unions before and disliked the intents of the unions I was in. There are some that are the check and balance to employers taking advantage. If you can figure out how running “on call” status highly paid with high responsibilities rather than hiring the amount of professionals they should to fill out a work schedule with contingency plans other than planning to call someone back into an unplanned shift then you have just alleviated “on call” status and have awarded your employees an opportunity to live a far more stable family life.
Using the theory of on call employment adds to the determination that the employee takes a job and it is the central point of their lives. And there are people out there that choose that type of life. But if you want a stable family life without the struggles of living it, you’re right, you are in the wrong profession and you made a bad choice of career.
But the determination of choice of schedule is with the railroads here. Not the government. Nor was it decided by the employees and it doesn’t have to be that way. And finding a way to make your employee want to work for you is the success formula for any business. Happy employees try to do better work. You want an engineer running your passenger train you are on already pissed?
And there are other things that on call creates:
A limit on how far away can they go while they’re on call
Limits on their activities, such as not allowing them to drink during the on-call time
Frequent calls. If you call them in often, they can argue the time between calls is not their own.
A brief required response time. If they must call back within an hour, they have a lot of freedom. If you expect them in the workplace immediately, they can argue the waiting time is not off-duty time.
After you call workers in, there’s no ambiguity. They’re on the clock and entitled to pay, just like any other shift. The law in some states requires that however little they work, you must pay them for at least four hours.
And some jobs have restrictions on work amounts by time. That can mean calling more on call employees in for one task if the state has restrictions on time working. Such jobs as long haul truckers, air traffic controllers, and driving busses, trains or flying aircraft all have limitations. Having the right amount of employees to cover the shifts would be much better than creating on call employees. But it would cost the employer more on HR.
wy69