"TIME BACK" vs. Overtime $$ pay

Huhhhh.....the adminstration is IN on it too...we have been suddenly placed on "salary", we are suddenly referred to as "professionals"... get paid for 40 max.....even if we work 50hrs....still have to clock in and out, mandated to take call, do not get paid for call time or if you have to return to work...NO pay...sounds illegal to me, but we, RNs dont have any controll over what is dictated to us by our poor state nursing agencies nor the wage and hour labor board. Now RNs can be exempt and paid a flat salary and NO overtime...and mandated to work over as necessary without pay or "THEY", the ones who dont know how to do a nursing job, but make the RULES to their favor, say it is "abandoment of patient". RNs need some type of legal leverage...we are used and abused all to often.....So the question is, "What to do?" Any suggestions?
trn

Thanks to all who have replied. I do appreciate the valuable info of other RNs. So fare the Labor Board has told us there is nothing we can do...that we can be classified as salary and therefore are not elegible for OT pay...The attorneys we have talked to also state the same...We are still mandated to stay over without compensation and take call without compensation and come back for emergencies without compensation...go figure! The Board of Nursing also has been notified by one of the RNs...We are still getting tossed around...We are keeping documentations of OT, OC, and CB...On occasion no lunches also are at issue...there are no hospital policies really explaining how we are to be paid on salary since it just started about 3 weeks ago. We lost overtime on the last pay check and were told one day before we recieved the check that we were no longer getting anything but 40/wk pay...They say RNS do fall under the exempt status now... to their convience of course.