Does Your Boss Have To Pay You For On-Call Time?

By Amy E. Feldman

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) - Wanna know what Victoria's real Secret is? You might not get paid as much as you thought.

Which is why, after public pressure, the company recently announced it would end its on-call scheduling system in which workers had to call, email, or text managers just before reporting to work to find out if they had to go into work—which left little time to make childcare arrangements—or stay home, which meant they wouldn't be paid.

Under the law, if an on call shift is at the worksite, a worker must be paid for the time, but if a worker is on call at his own home and is free to carry on with his own personal business, he doesn't have to be paid just because he's on call or carrying a pager.

So retail workers at Victoria's Secret wouldn't find out if they would go in on short notice or if not, not be paid and there's nothing illegal about the scheduling system, although it doesn't make the company sound like angels so it changed its policy over what was a PR nightmare after the public got its panties in a bunch.