Context: Salaried employee living in California, working for a fully-remote software startup.
After two years on-call is being implemented. It’s unpaid, and mandatory. With current rotations I’m looking at 10 weeks per year. On-call was not previously required, nor does it appear in my employment contract.
I’ve done some reading and it appears that as long as there aren’t overt restrictions to movement then unpaid uncall is fine.
However, they’re expecting 10-15 minute response times and you always being in a location with internet service.
Additionally, these text alerts are expected to be setup on our personal devices and phone plans. The company does not contribute towards these costs, nor do they issue work phones.
Does that constitute as overly restrictive? And if so, do I have a case?
Sure, but like it or not, that’s not how people work. The people who take the time to discover and conform to the standards of a community they join will always be in the minority. If we don’t account for that and take steps to reduce confusion right up front, then we just create the conditions to duplicate the toxicity that has destroyed every previous experiment in mass interpersonal communications going all the way back to BBS days.