Holiday Pay-- Anyone else heard of this??

imapsychrn · Jul 7, 2014

If it makes you feel better, we don't get Holiday pay. Only benefit to working the Holidays is sometimes they provide food. (Yep, hospital cafeteria food. Yum.)

nurse4ever08 · Jul 8, 2014

12:01 am until 11:59 pm on the actual calendar day is how most pay holiday pay. Noc shift usually works night before and night of to get a full shift of holiday pay

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2014

Where I work, the noc before is considered the holiday--so to get Independence Day pay, work between 2300 on 7/3 and 2300 on 7/4. Last winter, Christmas was my holiday to work so I was scheduled to go in on Christmas Eve (I work nocs) and leave Christmas morning. Thanksgiving was my holiday off, but I was scheduled to go in at 2300 Thanksgiving night. My family lives 3 hours away, so BOTH holidays were shot for me. It stinks, but it is what it is.

anon456, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2014

Yep my work is like that, too. I think it's unfair and dumb. It's not like I would choose to be there for only half the shift. I still either slept through half my holiday to take a nap for night shift, or will be sleeping through the holiday when I get off work.

It does not balance out at all because I am working one holiday shift per our required schedule but only get paid of half of it. Unless I worked both the night before and the night of.

anon456, BSN, RN · Jul 8, 2014

12:01 am until 11:59 pm on the actual calendar day is how most pay holiday pay. Noc shift usually works night before and night of to get a full shift of holiday pay

So night shift has to work essentially 2 holiday days to get the same pay as one holiday day shift?

OneDuckyRN · Jul 9, 2014

My employer does 12 hour shifts, 7-7. I'm on nights, and if I work the night before a holiday (say July 3), I get time and a half for the whole shift. If I work the night of the holiday, I get straight time for the whole shift. Yes, it kind of sucks sometimes, but that's how our policy is, and we all agreed to it when we accepted jobs. It is kind of nice that we don't have to work both nights in order to get the full holiday, I'll say that much.

DedHedRN · Jul 9, 2014

Quit.

RNsRWe, ASN, RN · Jul 9, 2014

Ok, I'll throw this in:

A former employer of mine (hospital) offered 8 hours of holiday pay for each holiday recognized as such. If someone normally worked a 12 hour shift and WANTED to only work 8 hours on that day (as is often the case for T'giving & Christmas), the scheduling office would do their best to accomodate. If they could, great: you worked for 8 hours, got 8 hours holiday rate. But about that other 4 hours you normally worked but took off---that you would need to use vacation or personal time for in order to make up the difference. You could then take off another 8-hour day in the next (or earlier) schedule as "your" holiday at home.

Work 8 hours on holiday=time and a half for time worked. Take another day off at straight pay for PTO compensation.

DON'T work 8 hours on holiday, use that day for PTO holiday compensation.

NO ONE could EVER make more than 8 hours of holiday time-and-a-half rates. Don't care if you work 12 hours; since 8 hours is considered a 'full' holiday day, that's what anyone working would get. If you could work it to your advantage, you did. Sometimes it didn't work out well. Like the time I came in at 7pm ON Memorial Day (left the family barbecue, yada yada) and worked until 7am. STRAIGHT pay. Why? Because "my" holiday, as night shift, was the night before (7p-7a). If I had been scheduled to work Memorial Day, I would have been paid OT for the 8 hours from 11p Sunday night through 7am Monday morning.

So, sometimes I got screwed, as above. Sometimes, the screwing would take a REAL hit: scheduled for Thanksgiving 7p-7a. Ok, so that meant working the night before T-Day, getting off on the morning of T-Day, having earned 8 hours of holiday pay....and then having to come back in T-Day NIGHT, too: it wasn't the holiday, after all!

Loo17 · Jul 9, 2014

Sp technically a night shifter that works every other holiday could hypothetically be scheduled to work every christmas morning because their "holiday" starts at 11pm, if December 24 is their scheduled day every year? That does not seem fair.

The hospital where I work counts the holiday as starting at 7pm the day before the holiday and ending at 7pm the day of the holiday for Christmas day. The rest of the holidays start at 7am the day of the holiday and ends at 7am the following day.

So if a 7pm-7am person is scheduled to work every other holiday they would receive holiday pay from 7pm on Dec 24 until 7am on Dec 25. If they are also scheduled to work Dec 25 at 7pm on Dec 25 there is no holiday pay. The rest of the holidays, July 4th for example, if they work 7pm-7am on July 3rd -4th they receive no holiday pay. If they work July 4th at 7pm until July 5 at 7am they receive the holiday pay. It is very fair and nobody receives more or less holiday pay than the next.

I agree with the OP, if it is your holiday to work you should receive an entire shift holiday pay.

Ruby Vee, BSN · Jul 9, 2014

Assuming that they didn't try to hide the holiday pay policies from you when you took the job, and assuming they apply equally to everyone, there's nothing unfair about it. You don't like it, I get that. Do you dislike it enough to leave your job and go work for someone whose holiday pay policy you like better? Are there other things about your job that you dislike, or is it a pretty good job otherwise? Like the people, the work, the patient mix? Find a way to enjoy what you like about the job and live with what you don't. In the greater scheme of things, I don't think a few hours of holiday pay a year is that much of a deal breaker, but I understand wanting to ventilate about it a bit.

ponymom · Jul 9, 2014

You can find a way to make this work for you instead of complaining about it. My case may be a bit extreme but here it is-

I finagled my hours (by picking up and trading, and jumping right on the open-time sheet) so that I received holiday pay for the following:

Labor Day 16 hrs at T1/2 at holiday rate (picked up a CNA shift, then worked my LPN shift)

Thanksgiving Day 16 hours at T1/2 at holiday rate (picked up a CNA shift, then worked my LPN shift)

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 16 hrs at T1/2 each day at holiday rate (CNA-LPN)

New Years Eve and New Years Day 16 hrs at T1/2 each day at holiday rate (CNA-LPN)

In addition to the pay at holiday rate, I also made an additional $125 bonus for each shift worked as a CNA, of which between the months of November and January, I had 26 shifts getting that extra little bonus, in addition to being paid my nurse wages for doing CNA work, and most of it was at T1/2 because my total hours were quite high. I also grabbed what I could of LPN bonus, although that was more limited. I was the only LPN in my whole building doing CNA work. I made a poop-ton of money, and went almost five months before I was mandated (with other nurses being mandated 2x week). Another big plus was that I got to really really really know my residents (skins, habits, likes, dislikes, sooo much) and all the CNAs really appreciated it and I actually had a good time (looking back, although it is damn physical work). And no, I had never been a CNA before I became a nurse.

In manufacturing, every shift makes the holiday pay, nursing is different so I figured as long as I have to put in the hours, I'll do it where I'll get paid the most. My DON would not use agency and LPN and CNA mandations were terrible, some were being mandated three days in a row, they were screaming in the hallways at each other, nurses, too. It was awful. She put the bonus on and I grabbed all I could, and traded/picked-up to get the holidays. I was a machine. So, buck up and make it work for you.

chrisrn24 · Jul 10, 2014

I was frustrated this year too, but realize that the Fourth is the only holiday you really celebrate late at night.