Scheduled overtime

[greenerpastures]

The facility where I work schedules everyone for overtime, usually every other week but tied into your weekend shift. They bill it as being "on call" Friday, but they tell you up front that most of the time, you have to come in. If you don't answer and don't come in, you are terminated for a no call, no show. There is no on call pay and you are literally on call for the entire shift. Our working agreements are for 36 hours/week with a varied schedule, it says nothing about mandatory overtime. There are no extra benefits included other than getting overtime pay on Saturday because your "on call" Friday put you into overtime on Saturday. My question is, if it's "on call" and it's not voluntary overtime - shouldn't this be factored into our FTE and our benefits for the year? How can they force this on their employees and make it grounds for termination? Do any other facilities do this?

**Non union hospital

[Been there,done that, ASN, RN]

Has this been presented to your state's labor board?

[firstinfamily, RN]

I'm assuming these are 12 hour shifts as well. There isn't a reason to demand overtime unless they cannot staff the facility adequately and even then the nurses should have the right to refuse to work extra shifts without any type of threat to their position. When I worked in a LTC facility they were calling me every day I had off, and I worked full-time. I needed those two days off to get things done for myself and my family. Finally, I told them they could stop wasting their time because I had no plans on working extra shifts. They were a little offended. Hey as long as someone is working those extra shifts they are not going to hire anyone. There are enough nurses out there looking for jobs, they just need to reach out for them. Don't let them abuse you any longer!

[greenerpastures]

State doesn't have regs about overtime/mandating that we could find that make it "illegal". You don't have an option to decline the overtime. The schedule is put out with everyone on it for the extra day - no requests/questions asked about whether you can pick up. Rocking the boat just creates issues for you with the manager. The overtime pay is nice, but the scheduling is a little bit much as we work tracks so you are exhausted from the extra day.

[PMFB-RN, RN]

State doesn't have regs about overtime/mandating that we could find that make it "illegal". You don't have an option to decline the overtime. The schedule is put out with everyone on it for the extra day - no requests/questions asked about whether you can pick up. Rocking the boat just creates issues for you with the manager. The overtime pay is nice, but the scheduling is a little bit much as we work tracks so you are exhausted from the extra day.

What a crappy place to work! That hospital, and many others, are reaping the benefits of the deliberately created glut of nurses. They created the glut for this exact reason, to give them the ability to abuse their nurses without fear you all will simply vote with your feet, as would have happened before 2008.

It's also incompetent management. Sure existing staff working OT is the cheapest nursing labor they can get, it's penny wise and dollar foolish.

I wish I knew what hospital this was. We all need to remember this place if we are every in a situation where nursing jobs are plentiful and every nurse has a choice about where to work.