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Kelly vs California Swing
Same nine days, same three platoons, same fifty-six hour average. The difference is whether your time off arrives in one block or two.
Kelly
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
California Swing
Day shiftNight shift24-hour tourDay off
| Kelly | vs | California Swing |
|---|---|---|
| The cycle | ||
| 24 hours | Tour length | 24 hours |
| 9 days | Cycle length | 9 days |
| 56 hours | Average week | 56 hours |
| On, off, on, off, on, 4 off | Pattern | 1-3-2-3 |
| 4 days | Longest break | 3 days |
| How the tours are grouped | ||
| No | Two tours back to back | Yes |
| Yes | Single tours separated by a day off | NoOnly the first |
| No | Two separate breaks in the cycle | Yes |
| Living with it | ||
| YesFour days | One long block for travel | No |
| No | Regular weekly commitments | NoA nine-day cycle drifts either way |
| YesA day between each | Recovery after a busy pair | NoStraight into the second |
The same hours, arranged two ways
The Kelly runs a tour, a day off, a tour, a day off, a tour, then four days off. The California Swing runs a tour, three days off, two tours back to back, then three days off. Nine days either way.
One long break or two shorter ones
The Kelly's four-day block is what people stay for. It is enough for a trip, a course, or a solid run of paid duty work.
The Swing spreads it: two three-day breaks instead of one four-day. That suits people with commitments that come round more often than once a cycle — and it costs you the forty-eight hour pair in the middle.
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Which crews argue for
It is genuinely a matter of preference and stations do argue about it. People who travel or work a second job want the Kelly's long block. People with young families often prefer the Swing, because being home two separate times beats being home once for longer.
Full detail on each pattern: Kelly schedule · California Swing
In Canada this is a bargaining question
Everything above holds either side of the border — the cycles are the cycles. What changes here is who decides, and what the two cost.
A Canadian service does not simply adopt a rotation. The schedule sits in the collective agreement as a compressed work week article, and the Toronto Police Association and OPP agreements both carry one. In the OPP's case the terms of a compressed work week agreement are themselves subject to the grievance procedure. So moving from Kelly to California Swing is not a decision a new inspector makes — it is bargained, and it stays until it is bargained again.
It also does not follow that a whole service runs one of them. The Toronto Police Association agreement carries a Shift Schedules schedule in the plural, so which one you work can depend on where you are posted. The answer is in the agreement.
The two do not cost the same in every province
This is where the choice stops being about lifestyle. Ontario has no daily overtime trigger at all — overtime starts after 44 hours in a work week however the hours are arranged, so a 24-hour day and an 8-hour day are treated alike. British Columbia is the opposite: time and a half after 8 hours in a day, and double time past 12. Under those rules the kelly side is a materially more expensive way to cover the same ground, and the daily trigger does the deciding rather than the weekly total.
Ontario's daily ceiling follows the roster rather than the statute: the cap is eight hours or the established regular workday, if it is longer. Put a 24-hour day in the agreement and 24 hours becomes the lawful day. That is why the agreement matters more than the Act here.
Checked 7 August 2026. Provincial rules are quoted from the Employment Standards Act of the province named and, for Quebec, from the CNESST; federal provisions from the Treasury Board agreements. Employment standards are amended and collective agreements are renegotiated — check the current text before relying on a threshold or a figure.
The shift schedule you actually work
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