Would My Job’s New Rules Mean That My Job Should Now Be Considered On Call?

Location: Denver, CO

Some background on how my job currently works is that I am a W-2 employee who uses an app to be assigned to clients. I can put in my availability however I want, but am expected to put it in at least 12 hour increments and have it laid out a couple months in advance. Clients are then assigned to to me based on that availability within a 20 mile radius of my home, or I can pick up shifts that no one has been assigned to, and the app tells me the date, the start and end time, and the client’s address. Because of the 12 hour rule, if I wasn’t getting assigned to a shift by like 9-10pm the night beforehand I would often delete my availability for the next day since having my availability set to 6am-6pm would mean I would need to wake up at 4am just to check and make sure I hadn’t been assigned something on the other side of the city for a 6am start time. This was even something my manager suggested when I was hired and I was told many of my coworkers do this.

Starting this later this week the app is going to no longer let us just take out our availability. This means if I’m not assigned to something beforehand, then my above scenario is a reality. It also means that I could at 8am suddenly get a shift for 10am that day. I looked up whether this could be on call and found an explanation on ‘engaged to wait’ vs ‘waiting to engage’. While I can use my time however I want while I’m not assigned to a shift, because of the radius of clients I won’t be able to go far from my home for fear of not making it to a client on time if I’m suddenly scheduled. I have to pack a lunch (can’t leave the client’s house until the end time usually), gather any supplies I’ll need for that day, possibly change into different clothes, and then maybe even have to immediately leave after that depending on how much notice I was given, how far away it is, and how much traffic there is at that time of day.

So could this possibly be considered on call? Should I contact the department of labor to see if they can get my job to either pay us for the time or change back to their old system?