Michigan Child and Adult Protective Services workers are eligible for more overtime pay after a recent arbitration decision.
There are now more situations that qualify on-call employees working at home for overtime.
“It’s a very difficult and stressful work – and often in the middle of the night or on holidays. And it requires expertise and good training. And so those caseworkers deserve to be compensated fully,”
said Ray Holman is with UAW Local 6000, which represents the workers. Holman is also a former Child Protective Services worker.
“The calls come in all of the time. So, often caseworkers are awoken in the middle of the night to handle situations. So now they’re going to be getting compensated for that and we’re overjoyed about that.”
Holman says before the decision, CPS and APS workers could get one hour of overtime pay for five hours worked at home while on-call. Those same workers would be entitled to a minimum of three hours of overtime if they went into the field. The arbiter ruled the employees should be eligible for the same minimum of three hours overtime if they did substantial work from home.
“It’s not just simply the phone goes off and you get three hours of pay,” said Holman. “There has to be something that disrupts your life, so to speak.”
It’s not clear whether the state can or will appeal the decision. A spokesperson for the state Department of Health and Human Services could not immediately comment.