[deespoohbear]

I think I have heard it all now. We have several night baylor people, so our regular night shift doesn't not have to work weekends. We have no baylor days, and the nurses on days who are still required to work weekends think this is unfair. Well, this week my boss comes to me and says: "hey, we have a couple of the regular day nurses who want to go to baylor days. Would you like to see what you can work out so the rest of the nurses could go to every 4th weekend." So I ask for the names of the nurses who want to work the baylor days, and find out there is one more little catch to this story. If the rest of us nurses go to every 4th weekend, we would be required to take call one other weekend a month AND not receive on call pay. My response was BS, I am not taking call and not getting paid. I would rather just keep my every 3rd weekend. I told my boss that I could see the scenario now, one of the other departments would call in sick and the call person would be expected to come in and fill in the department that called in. Of course her reply was, "no that won't happen, you would be on call for our department only." Yeah, right. I like to sell you some oceanfront property in Arizona too, and there is a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you, too. I just looked at my boss and stated "how dumb do you think we are?"
Needless to say, I probably won't be asked to work on this again.

[Zee_RN]

I have no clue what "baylor people" or "baylor days" are.

[deespoohbear]

Zee-

Baylor people are employees who only work weekends. At our facility they work 2 12 hour shifts (Sat, Sun) and get paid for 36 hours. Our hospital allows them one weekend off out of six months and they sign a contract. All we have had is "baylor" night people (7p-7a). There are enough of these "baylor" nights people that the regular 12 hour people aren't required to work any weekend hours, the work just the weekdays. We have a couple of nurses who are regular day people who work every 3rd weekend who are wanting to do day "baylors." Therefore, some of us "reg" people would be able to have more weekends off. I am not sure what other facilities call this program. I have heard it called weekend bonus plan in the paper. Hopes this helps you understand what "baylor" people work.

[Tweety]

On call is a big issue with our critical care staff. They finally instituted a rule (made up by the nurses actually, but fully supported by the manager) that you will not be called in to float to another unit, except critical care overflow (which could be the recovery room if a postop patient is fully recovered and there is no critical care bed available, or ER if they are holding down there).

People are allowed to sign up when they can be on call. So of course, they pick fully staffed days to be on call. But they can not be called in to float.

[deespoohbear]

3rdShiftGuy-

Does the staff get on call pay? Or do they just sit around waiting to be called in and then paid only if they get called in? Another general question I have is, can an employer force you to take call and not pay you for your on call time? The idea of waiting around for the phone to ring and not be paid for my time really stinks....

[Zee_RN]

Ah, ok, now I understand "baylor" days. Thanks.

We do not have such a program at our hospital. One of our sister hospitals does but it is not called that. They are not paid for 36 hours but they are paid a premium rate.

We also do not have on-call days in our unit (ICU). PACU/OR is the only unit that has on-call days and the pay is very minimal. Oh, maybe radiology does too--but believe me the patient better be nearly dead before a nurse will come into radiology on the a Sunday or nights. An ICU nurse may be used...'cept I don't know nuthin' 'bout no special procedures in Radiology!!

[Nurse Ratched]

Seems like requiring someone to be on call and not paying them to be on call is a violation of labor laws.

It's not dissimilar to when I work nocs; we get paid for our lunch half hour because we cannot be away from the unit for that time d/t the lower staff on nocs, and the dept of labor doesn't consider that you are "on break" if you're not allowed to leave your area.

I would think that a similar standard would apply in this case.

I'd like to see jt- or Nurse Karen weigh in on this.

[sjoe]

"I just didn't fall off the turnip truck yesterday.... "

--delighted to see that someone else besides myself knows and appreciates that phrase.

dees--good for you. Now, of course, your boss will recommend counseling for your "bad attitude."

Been there, done that, not worth it.

Best wishes,
sjoe

[ERN]

If the rest of us nurses go to every 4th
weekend, we would be required to take call one other weekend a month AND not receive on call pay.

Will someone please explain to me why nurses are expected to dumb and compliant when asked to give away our practices?

[Tweety]

If you are on call you get on-call pay. It's only $1.50 an hour if your not called in for med-surg. I have no idea what it is for critical care.

They can't force us to be on call and not pay us. That would definately affect morale and open them up to a lot of nurse dissatisfaction. We have a committee made up of critical care nurses that come up with their on-call policies. It's mandatory, but they handle the "rules". It's also mandatory in recovery room and L&D.

Critical care has mandatory on call 12 hours a month. People sometimes break it up into four hour increments, or do their 12 all in one day. Med-surg has no on-call, unless we are canceled due to low census, they can ask us do go on call. We can decline to be on-call, but then they can decline to cancel you.

Sitting at home being on call is a pain.