Work Advice: More workers wondering, 'Is this legal?'

After my last "Is this legal?" column, I received that same question from other workers forced to put in grueling hours, paid and unpaid.

According to Declan Leonard, managing partner of business law firm Berenzweig Leonard in McLean, Virginia, Fair Labor Standards Act violations are the most common subject of employment lawsuits.

Here, he helps address specific issues.

Reader: I work for an electrical, heat, AC and plumbing company that requires one mechanic, on a rotating basis, to be on call 24 hours a day for an entire week. We're expected to work our normal day shift even if we've worked all night on emergency calls. We have to put our entire life on hold to be available that week. We sometimes work for stretches of 24 hours and more, only breaking to eat. And the work can include operating a backhoe and driving a dump truck. We are compensated only for the hours we actually work, but we do get overtime after 40 hours in a week.

A: Legal? Yes, but ...

There's no federal law limiting how many hours employers can demand of adult workers, except in certain industries (aviation and commercial transport, for example). But depending on the extent to which you have to put your life "on hold" - are you expected to stay local or meet a guaranteed response time? - you may be entitled under federal or state law to compensation for the time you spend on-call, even if you're not actively working.

Safety strikes me as a bigger issue here. Publications from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (www.nhtsa.gov) and the Labor Department's Occupational Safety & Health Administration (www.osha.gov) cite drowsy driving as a major cause of traffic accidents and fatalities. Plus, I imagine lack of sleep could affect your repair work. Perhaps those arguments would help persuade your employer to find another way to cover after-hours calls that doesn't put workers, customers or the public at risk. Meanwhile, you and your colleagues should look out for one another.

Reader: A few years ago, everyone in my IT department was moved from hourly to salaried, exempt positions. We have to account for 40 hours of productive time each week, plus be on call for a week every other month and take after-hours support calls for no additional pay.

A: Legal? Yes.

Special overtime and minimum wage exemptions exist for certain computer professionals, depending on the kind of work they do. Department of Labor fact sheet No. 17E lays out the basic rules. Assuming you are correctly classified as exempt under these rules, your long hours and unpaid extra work are legal.

But Leonard is curious: "What happens if they don't account for a full 40 hours in a week?"

We'll explore that next time.

• Miller has written for and edited tax publications for 16 years, most recently for the accounting firm KPMG's Washington National Tax office. You can find her on Twitter, @KarlaAtWork.