Getting Paid $$ for End-of-Shift Overtime?

[nyforlove]

This was being discussed on a specialty forum, but it applies universally to hospital nurses, so here goes:

Getting Paid for End-of-Shift Overtime

If a Nurse needs to stay an extra hour after a 12-hour shift to finish (which is a likely scenario for a fresh grad), does a Union make sure she gets paid for that hour, where non-Union hospitals may take the attitude, "Well, it's your fault you didn't finish, so you're on your own time..." I heard of a "friend of a friend" who routinely puts in extra time at the end of a shift at a large Manhattan hospital, but NEVER gets paid...now, I won't name the hospital, because I've never actually spoken to him and the problem may be that he fails to fill out the necessary paperwork (he's a bit "unorganized"). At one of my clinical sites, the Recruiting Office at a smaller Bklyn hospital said it does NOT pay for end-of-work overtime, because it feels the nurse failed to arrange her time appropriately....What are your thoughts? It's not as if a nurse can leave EARLY if she's completed all her meds and notes...she must stay until the end of the shift and if something happens a minute before the shift ends, she absolutely should be paid to stay and take care of it if needed to do so (even if her replacement nurse has arrived, but needs assistance).

[OC_An Khe]

Never never never work off the clock. Besides not being compensated for work you are legally entitled too, your personal liability increases dramatically. No workers comp. coverage, liability for errors, etc. can place your financial life at grave risk. Place your self at risk so some one can routine con money from you. I don't think so.

We all must remember that health care is a business (even the non profits must make a profit) and we must treat our profession as a business also.

[timdmb]

we dont get paid for ot until it is an hour and half after the shift that we have stayed; somehow we are classified as "salaried" employees we do however make an hourly wage. However we also only average 39 hours a week and are paid for 40 so it balances out iin its own way. im fairly new three months in and am stuck tying loose ends for about a half hour extra maybe once a week, so im still under that 40 hour mark...

[hptogram]

When I worked at the hospital, we did get overtime if we worked over our scheduled hours, but this is LTC, and it's not just me - ALL the nurses in the facility are there past their scheduled time. My feeling is that if they had to pay time & a half, then they'd start looking at WHY we have to do so much overtime - and maybe hire enough help.

I complained to my DON about the OT, and having to spend so much time answering lites, and doing cares - I was told to tell the CNA that she'd have to answer ALL the lites!! Which is total BS as far as I'm concerned - I have a wonderful aide, and she shouldn't be expected to "do it all" on her own. Plus, I can't stand listening to the call lites buzzing for very long.:angryfire

You are very nice to think of your aide. The ALF I work at, for the better part of the last three weeks, I've had to keep watch over 35-45 residents by myself. So I've had to answer all the lights because someone either called out or that's just the way they scheduled it. I work 10p to 6a and if its just me and one other aide in the building (she works in the alzheimers unit, by herself, which is to capacity with 25 residents) and my 6a relief does not show up, guess who gets to stay? Me. And get this, I was told by the executive director that if I didn't get permission by my department head, who is the DON, to stay, then I'll be written up! So I called the DON when relief didn't come and I couldn't leave with just one aide and 70 something residents! She told me to clock out anyway, but stay and answer the lights because they don't want overtime. :angryfire Apparently, the ones that show up late, or do no call no show still have a job and clean record, but the ones who stay because they have to, to make sure the residents are taken care of, get penalized, written up and not paid for their time. I do not get why they don't just pay the OT until they get more staff. They can see by the time cards why someone has to stay late. Its just ridiculious. I am beginning to think that Nursing isn't for me. I love doing it and helping the residents, but all this other crap, its just not worth it.

Oh I forgot the best part. So the evening nurse, who is an LPN and a great lady, called the DON to tell her that there would be just me and one other aide in the building due to a call out. Her reply, "nothing I can do about it." Isn't that nice?

[brendamyheart]

Try this site and see if it helps. I work in LTC and I am a non exempt. I get paid by the hour. If I go over 40 in a week, i get paid overtime.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/regs/compliance/whd/hrg.htm

[BSNtobe2009]

Every company that I have worked at or managed at since I was 16 years old, it was a terminable offense for an employee to "work off the clock" if you were non-exempt. It's against the law for a manager to even ask.

This sets a company up for lawsuits if an employee quits or gets fired and can then come back and complain that they were not paid for all hours worked, or had unpaid OT. It doesn't happen often, but it does happen.

Companies, even the biggest ones, can and do abuse this. Payroll is the biggest budget-buster in almost any business. One of the first jobs that I got after college (when I was very young and naive), I got a letter 3 years after I left asking me if we had been asked to come in on Saturdays or stay late or work through our lunch and wasn't paid for it. I sent them an answer back and said, 'Yes, but they said I was on salary and they could do that.'

A year after that...I got a nice fat check for over $2K because the job I was working, by law, they were not permitted to pay me a salary at all to make me exempt.

Turns out they fired someone who refused to work a Saturday and not get paid for it, and when they did, she filed a complaint with the Labor Board, and they reviewed their last 2 years of employment records and found it it was rampant...and this was a large, International company.

[JenNJFLCA]

I am a non union hospital and we sure do get paid for overtime. If they tell me I should have better time management and therefore, not have overtime-they can kiss my orifice and give me less patients. Then I'll be done sooner :)

:yeahthat: