Robocop
Moderator, *Mammoth Killer*
After many hours of searching google I have been unable to make much of the legal jumbo and am curious if anyone can give any information on a labor problem at my work.
I am in the state of Alabama and work for a very large Police dept with over 950 sworn officers. My job is in patrol and I am at one of 4 precincts. The biggest problem is that my employer simply cancels my normal days off and demands that I work over the normal 40 hour week. This has been done in the past for several events such as ball games or the fair and when they need to staff such events they simply cancel patrol officers off days. They do not cancel everyones days off at times and seem to single out patrol officers. In the most recent example it seems that detectives and other city employees did not have their days off cancelled.
Can you imagine your employer simply saying you will not be allowed your off days this week?....can this be done? I am not sure if there is some weird exemption for police officers or something like that however you would think with such a dangerous job there would be some form of federal law regulating the hours placed on a peace officer. Seems like to me fatigue would be something an employer would not want to have with their officers however this has been done several times in the past.
Also when I work overtime such as a late call and I have lets say 50 hours for the week I only get paid for 40. The excess is placed in a book as comp time to be taken off later. Once I build over a certain amount (80 hrs) then they will pay me for anything over that. Lets say I have 88 comp hours then I get 8 hours of pay however it is only for straight time and not the time and a half rate as the rest of the working world....also can this be done?
From what I have read so far Fair labor laws mandate that an employer must pay time and a half rate for any overtime however there is so much legal mumbo jumbo I can not really understand if I am somehow exempt as an officer.
If there are any legal experts here or simply anyone with suggestions I would appreciate any input. More than anything if there are any officers with similiar problems here that would also be nice to have any input from you as well. I am basically very angry as my off days and family time are very important to me however they are stripped away at random simply because my employer decides to do so....thanks for looking and I may be over reacting here however it is nice to vent a little.
I am in the state of Alabama and work for a very large Police dept with over 950 sworn officers. My job is in patrol and I am at one of 4 precincts. The biggest problem is that my employer simply cancels my normal days off and demands that I work over the normal 40 hour week. This has been done in the past for several events such as ball games or the fair and when they need to staff such events they simply cancel patrol officers off days. They do not cancel everyones days off at times and seem to single out patrol officers. In the most recent example it seems that detectives and other city employees did not have their days off cancelled.
Can you imagine your employer simply saying you will not be allowed your off days this week?....can this be done? I am not sure if there is some weird exemption for police officers or something like that however you would think with such a dangerous job there would be some form of federal law regulating the hours placed on a peace officer. Seems like to me fatigue would be something an employer would not want to have with their officers however this has been done several times in the past.
Also when I work overtime such as a late call and I have lets say 50 hours for the week I only get paid for 40. The excess is placed in a book as comp time to be taken off later. Once I build over a certain amount (80 hrs) then they will pay me for anything over that. Lets say I have 88 comp hours then I get 8 hours of pay however it is only for straight time and not the time and a half rate as the rest of the working world....also can this be done?
From what I have read so far Fair labor laws mandate that an employer must pay time and a half rate for any overtime however there is so much legal mumbo jumbo I can not really understand if I am somehow exempt as an officer.
If there are any legal experts here or simply anyone with suggestions I would appreciate any input. More than anything if there are any officers with similiar problems here that would also be nice to have any input from you as well. I am basically very angry as my off days and family time are very important to me however they are stripped away at random simply because my employer decides to do so....thanks for looking and I may be over reacting here however it is nice to vent a little.