Scheduling above my required hours

[Mel_L&D_RN]

I'm a night shift L&D nurse at my local hospital. My unit is pretty short staffed at this time due to several people leaving the night shift to go to the day shift, as well as a recent death of one of my coworkers and another coworker who was fired. Since L&D is a specialty we don't really have the ability to pull staff from anywhere else in the hospital. My most recent schedule has just been published and my manager has put me on more shifts than I am required to work. My hospital uses a variety of "point statuses" rather than "full time" or "part time" designations. I am a 0.6 which means that my job requires me to do two 12 hour shifts per week, I can work more if I request it or agree to it but my understanding was that management can't just schedule me above my hours without requesting me to work more first. On this new schedule I had requested a personal day and put in my request for the other day I would be required to work that week (we do self scheduling which gets balanced my another coworker and then approved or changed by the manager). When the schedule was published I found that my personal day was denied (which I was kind of expecting) and that rather than put on one additional shift to meet my point status I was put onto two additional shifts that week. Of course the shifts I was put onto are the worst days that I could have been put on that week and creates a major child care issue for me.

This is the second time that something similar has happened to me, in august a day that I requested to work was moved from one week to another week leaving me to work more one week than the other but it did not result in changing the hours I worked during our two week pay period, of course our management has also changed over again in the month since this occurred. The nurses are unionized at my hospital, however I cannot find wording in the contract that deals with this particular issue. I am sending my manager an email explaining what has happened and the reasons why this creates a problem for me, however we are very short that week and I feel like she will probably not be willing to help change this.

Has this happened to others, and what can I do in this situation?

[morte, LPN, LVN]

contact your union, you pay them to handle this sort of thing.

[klone, MSN, RN]

The "point status" is not unique to your hospital - it's a fraction of a FTE or "full time equivalent" based on an 80-hour work week and every facility uses that. You would still be designated "full time" or "part time" for purposes of figuring out how much you pay for your benefits.

And yes, I agree with Morte that this is a perfect question for your union rep.

[Mel_L&D_RN]

Thank you, I do plan to talk to them. This only just happened this morning so I wanted some opinions as well.

[meanmaryjean, DNP, RN]

Is it also possible that someone just made a mistake?

[Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN]

Why are they allowing changes of shifts, when staffing clearly doesn't allow for it?* I would point it out to your manager in case it truly was a mistake (she's human after all.) If it was intentional, I would talk to your union rep. You work 0.6 for a reason, and staffing the unit is a management responsibility -- not yours.

[Julius Seizure]

Is it also possible that someone just made a mistake?

Yes check this first