One of the biggest and most important concerns employees have is when they are entitled to be paid. This is especially true when there are some gray areas, like being on call or traveling. You may think you should be paid for the entire 24 hours that you’re on a trip for business, but employment lawyers in NYC will tell you otherwise.
Still, knowing what time you should be paid for is most important, so you can address the issue with your employer, should it become a problem. In general, an employer must pay an employee for any of their time that benefits the company. Being on call or traveling for business are two of the stickiest situations when it comes to wage law, so here are some basic points to consider.
On-Call Pay
A quality New York attorney can help clearly explain specific circumstances regarding on-call pay. However, in general, if an employee has to be on an employer’s company site, or out in the field on an assignment, then they are entitled to be compensated for their time. So if you have to sit on-site and wait for a customer to show up for two hours, you should be paid for that time, even if you didn’t do any actual work. There are also different restrictions an employer can put on an employee when they are on call. The more restrictions there are, the higher likelihood the employee will have to be paid for their time, since they are unable to do the things they want to do freely.
Pay For Travel
Traveling for business has many different variables when it comes to getting fairly compensated for your time. Some of the variables include whether the business trip is just for a day or overnight. If you have to travel for a day trip to an offsite location, you are likely entitled to be paid for your travel time. Of course, you aren’t entitled to be paid for your regular commute to work onsite.
Overnight trips are where things get tricky. Most of the time, employees don’t have to be paid for business travel unless they are actually working. Of course, there are many caveats to this, and you may need to find the best employment lawyers in NYC to help you determine whether your exact situation merits pay when traveling.
Gordon & Gordon is a law firm in NYC that wants to help employees ensure they are getting fairly compensated by their employer. If you feel like you are being treated unfairly by your employer because of your long on-call hours or business travel time, be sure to contact us to speak to an experience New York attorney to assist with your situation.