Are you entitled to ‘show-up pay’?

Q:        I work as an on-call employee for a healthcare facility. My employer often calls me to report for duty but when I arrive to work, my assignment is cancelled and I am sent home. This has happened several times and I was not paid for a single canceled work even though they scheduled it and I showed up for it. What are my rights?       

A:        For every day that you reported to a scheduled workday, you may be entitled to reporting time pay. If the employee is required to work, reports to work, and is not put to work, or does not work half of the employee’s scheduled day’s work, the employee is paid a half-shift reporting wage of at least two hours but not to exceed four hours.

Generally, if an employee is required to report to work a second time in any one workday and is furnished less than two hours of work on the second reporting, he or she must be paid for two hours at his or her regular rate of pay. These hours must be paid at the employee’s regular rate of pay.

Reporting time pay or “show-up pay” is compensation that employers are required to pay to hourly employees for certain unworked but regularly scheduled time, in addition to the hours the employee actually worked. The employer’s legal obligation to pay reporting time pay stems from California’s objective to encourage employers to properly schedule employees, and not waste employee’s time with haphazard scheduling.

Employers do not have to pay reporting time pay when the following situations occur:

1. Business operations cannot begin or continue due to threats to employees or property, or when civil authorities recommend that work not begin or continue;
2. Public utilities fail to supply electricity, water, or gas, or there is a failure in the public utilities, or sewer system;
3. The interruption of work is caused by an Act of God or other cause not within the employer’s control (e.g., earthquake, rain, or inclement weather);
4. The employee has requested to leave work early for personal reasons;
5. The employee is not fit to work (e.g., the employee reported to work while drunk);
6. The employee has not reported to work on time and is fired or sent home as a disciplinary action;
7. The employee is paid on standby status and is called to perform standby work on nonscheduled time.

Some employers may find it convenient to schedule employees only when there is a need for them, thus, keeping employees “on-call” and scheduling them to work with maybe a few hours’ notice. If these employees show up for a scheduled work, but then were sent home without being put to work, should they be paid for showing up?  Some employees who work in the retail industry have filed lawsuits so they could be paid their show-up pay.

“On-call” scheduling may happen not only in the retail industry but other industries as well, where the demand for workers may fluctuate, such as in healthcare, manufacturing, hotels and restaurants, or sales. Employees who are “on-call,” on unpaid “stand-by” or “per diem,” who find their scheduled work canceled after they show up, and who do not get paid for the cancellation, would be smart to speak with a knowledgeable employment attorney to find out if they’re entitled to additional wages.

The Law Offices of C. Joe Sayas, Jr. welcomes inquiries about this topic. All inquiries are confidential and at no-cost. You can contact the office at (818) 291-0088 or visit www.joesayaslaw.com. [C. Joe Sayas, Jr., Esq. is an experienced trial attorney who has successfully recovered wages and other monetary damages for thousands of employees and consumers. He was named Top Labor & Employment Attorney in California by the Daily Journal, consistently selected as Super Lawyer by the Los Angeles Magazine, and is a Presidential Awardee for Outstanding Filipino Overseas in 2018.]