In addition to their normal hour of work, electronic technicians at a power plant were required to remain on-call from 4:30 pm to 7:30 am on Monday through Friday and for twenty-four hours on the weekend. While on call, the technicians typically responded to three to five alarms per evening. Each alarm took, on average, 45 minutes to work. Technicians were expected to respond to alarms within 15 minutes. Failure to respond was grounds for discipline. The technicians were given pagers, but these did not work properly, forcing the technicians to remain at or near home. The technicians were paid for the time they spent responding to problems, but not for the remainder of the on-call time. The technicians sued for unpaid overtime. What should the court decide?

(Pabst v. Oklahoma Gas & Electric, 228 F.3d 1128 [10th Cir. 2000])