Mandatory Overtime Agreement in New York!

Federal Law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), trumps state law.

Some of the ways that health care facilities (especially skilled nursing ones) cheat workers
out of their overtime is:

1) Tell you to arrive early for report and THEN clock in.
2) Interrupt your lunch hour - even for a minute - then you are entitled to be paid for the hour
3) Make you attend meetings off the clock
4) Tell you to clock out and finish your charting or other work
5) Tell you to clock out and do the narcotics count
6) Tell you to clock out and wait for your relief.

They always threaten you with the loss of your license if you don't stay.

A group of Texas nurses has filed under the Fair Labor Standards Act to collect their overtime.
Although it talks about LVN's, documentation suggests that Med Aides, CNA's, housekeeping,
and food service will join in to collect their back money

It looks like the suit is expanding nation wide to many skilled nursing facilities.

Read about it here:

www.lvnclaim.com

Kcochrane, the way I read the law, they can't cry abandonment unless they can legally mandate you; i.e. emergencies, as outlined in the law. Many of us know, we're in for a fight with our employers over this. I'm already hearing we'll be suspended if we refuse to do OT when mandated. As with many other institutions, mandation has been the method for staffing.

We must report these mandations to the Dept of Labor! (link to download the form is on NYS Dept of Labor's site)

In the LTC facility where I work on weekends, they are blatantly circumventing this law. They have a policy in effect that states that the nurse holding the narcotic keys has to stay for the next shift if they were short staffed on that unit (there are 2 nurses to all units on the evening shift, which is 3p to 11p). My shift is 7a to 7p every other Sat/Sun. On Saturday, they did not schedule a nurse from 7pm to 11pm at all- so I was mandadated to stay. On Sunday, they left a nurse that was terminated on the schedule, knowingly, and I was mandated to stay from 7pm to 11pm. I am filling out a department of labor complaint form. They are going around the nursing home like hotcakes. Several nurses are filling these forms out and handing them into the department of labor. They are making no effort at filling the staffing holes, either. We cannot be the only place this is happening at, either.