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I am a non union, hourly bartender at an Irish Pub in Chicago. My manager has a bad habit of texting us with work related issues on our days off. I have asked him to please not contact me on my days off, unless in emergency. He thinks his texts are appropriate and not in violation of any labor law. Anxiously awaiting your reply, lisa p.s. i do not receive any form of payment for these texts. thank you, lisa

Submitted: 299 days and 12 hours ago.

Category: Employment Law

Value: $15

Status: CLOSED

Chicago, Illinois

Already Tried:
I asked him to not contact me on my days off, only in cases of emergencies. I spend an hour in the "back room" prior to my first shift of the week, every friday, to eat lunch and catch up with the other staff about the goings on of the week. I asked him to bring these issues to my attention at this time. he replied that he feels his texts are timely and necessary. i am at my wits end. thank you

Posted by KTLegal 299 days and 12 hours ago.

Info Request

Does your employer pay for your phone service? What would happen if you did not respond to his text messages?

299 days and 12 hours ago.

Reply

No. they do not pay for our phone service. in most instances, his msgs do not warrant a response. for example:
"Bevinco is 94% this week a drop of 5%. We are missing 1bt of the following: Smirnoff, Smirnoff citron, blueberry and watermelon, grey goos. And 2 btls of ketel 1. This is just vodka. Everything MUST go in system. Everything. We must keep are losses to a realistic number. Every bt beer should be accounted for."

Accepted Answer

The reason I asked about who pays for the phone service and what consequence would result from not responding is that I am wondering whether your boss is attempting to incorporate on-call type duties into your job. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense for bartenders. But, employers frequently do silly things without seeking good counsel.

Under federal law, The Fair Labor Standards Act requires that all employees receive payment for all time they are permitted by the employer to work, whether that work takes place on the employer's premises, at home, offsite; etc. An exception to the law allows employers to disregard infrequent and insignificant periods of time that cannot be, as a practical matter, precisely recorded for payroll purposes.

If these communications from your boss are fairly frequent and they concern work for which you were hired to do, then you might be entitled to pay for those periods of time. This is because employers must count as time worked, no matter how small, identifiable periods of time employees are regularly required to spend on duties assigned to that employee. In other words, an occasional text asking you whether you've seen the extra liquor pourer is not something that requires compensation. That does not sound like what you are describing though. You might try keeping a log to track just how much of your personal time these messages are taking. Your boss may not even realize how much of your time he's eating up.

If these messages are something that you just cannot live with, and you do not want to seek employment elsewhere, my suggestion would be to contact an attorney who deals with wage and hour issues. Or, you could contact the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour Division for your region (http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/america2.htm). The information I gave you is federal law. There may be state law that applies to your case as well, which a good wage and hour attorney can counsel you on.

I hope this information was helpful to you. Please click on the green "Accept" button so I can receive payment for my time.

Good luck to you!!

Accepts:
Expert:	KTLegal
Pos. Feedback:	100.0 %
Answered:	1/28/2009

Employment Lawyer

Labor and Employment Law; Mediation, Arbitratration, Litigation, Collective Bargaining Negotiations

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