John Frerichs, a Maintenance Specialist at the Central Nebraska Veterans Home in Kearney, prevailed in a grievance after he was denied the 2-hour minimum callback pay he earned and was entitled to under our union contract.
John clocked out after his regular shift and was placed into an on-call status. He was called back to the facility about ten minutes into his drive home. John’s task took about 30 minutes to complete. Our union contract guarantees that employees recalled to work while on-call must be compensated for at least two hours of pay – no matter how long their assigned task takes them.
When he received his next paycheck, John discovered that he did not receive the 2-hour callback pay compensation. Instead, his paycheck had been adjusted to show that he was only compensated for 30 minutes of work. This was not true because John had clocked out after his shift and left the facility.
“Someone erased my initial clock-out time and just treated it like I’d never left, but I knew that it was in our contract that if you leave the premises and clock out but are then called back, you get that two hours of callback pay,” he said.
John contacted his union representative right away and said that the grievance process was straightforward. He hopes that fighting this violation of his rights prevents something like this from happening again.
“It made me uncomfortable knowing that someone just went into the system and changed my timecard without telling me,” he said. “I hope that’s not something that regularly happens to my colleagues and I hope it doesn’t happen again.”
John said he encourages all of his fellow NAPE/AFSCME members to pay attention to these types of things and always double-check to make sure they’re paid what they’re due.
“It’s all about right and wrong – and unfortunately a lot of the time you’ve got to go to bat to prove what’s right,” he said. “But it’s always worth asking questions and following up.”
If you have questions about your check or callback pay, contact us right away.
