The Oklahoma Public Employees Association is asking lawmakers to fix "extremely vague" laws governing on-call workers.
Pittsburg County Adult Protective Services worker Courtney Fox said with seven workers there covering six counties, being on call is stressful.
"It’s a burden, and we only get compensated if we get a phone call. But at the same time, we have that phone the whole week, and even if we don’t get a phone call, we’re dreading it, thinking, 'We might get a phone call,'" Fox said.
OPEA's Sean Wallace said state workers are dealing with on-call duty on top of poor pay and benefits.
"The turnover rate of state employees is now the worst it’s ever been, and it’s costing the taxpayers $120 million a year. I do think if we make improvements in this area, we can improve retention and get rid of a lot of that frustration that state employees feel," Wallace said.
OPEA wants to see consistent rules rather than an array of agency policies including differential pay, pay only when actually called or making employees take equal time off later if called. The group said restrictions on what employees with on-call duty may or may not do are also inconsistent.
But, Wallace said it’s impossible to know what any fix will cost.
"Part of the issue is we have no idea, really, how many people are we talking about here. And that’s why I think [the Office of Management and Enterprise Services] has a hard time," Wallace said. "When they run a report, it shows four agencies, but we know that there are so many more."
Wallace said it’s nearly across the board. A representative from the Department of Human Services told lawmakers they have an office in every county, so they must have on-call staff in every county. She added DHS would prefer paying on-call employees who actually respond to a call a higher rate rather than paying a shift differential.
