Considered Mandatory Overtime?

[HillNPStudent]

Ok, so the hospital where I work has developed a new policy to help offset the high census during winter. We now have an overflow unit, and the unit I currently work on has to take call on the schedule to help cover this new unit. We had no choice; the nurses MUST be on call and come in if needed in addition to their regularly scheduled 3-12 hour shifts per week. Supposedly all the other units were taking call as well to cover the overflow, but for some reason ours is the only one which reguarly calls its nurses in extra for staffing. We are being paid extra, but sometimes we're called in to take only ONE patient. Although the decreased workload of having one patient is nice, I don't want to work more than my agreed-upon hired hours of 3-12 shifts weekly. Is this common practice in other hospitals? Would this be considered mandatory overtime? What do you think our rights as nurses are in this situation? When I was hired I agreed to work 3 shifts a week, guaranteed, but not more.

[plumrn, BSN, RN]

Yes, that is mandatory overtime. I don't really think there is anything staff can do about it either. Our hospital tried something similar for a couple of months, but the nurses were already so overwhelmed with not enough staff, that there was a big uproar, and nurses called in sick when they were told to come in on their days off. They finally stopped assigning mandatory on call days. Several staff quit during this time. If you can't depend on having your day off, you can't plan anything.

Employers seem to think no one would mind working over their agreed time, as long as they pay you extra. I for one, want my time off. I work my fulltime hours, and want, and deserve my time off. They can keep the extra money. There are those that DO appreciate overtime, and should be allowed to VOLUNTARILY fill in.

By the time you work 3 - 12 1/2 hour shifts (37.5), add in the 1/2 to 1 hour or MORE hours we ALWAYS seem to wind up working, (40.5), & we have put in enough! I need time to de-stress before doing another 40.5 hours!

Hopefully, your hospital will hire more nurses if they want to continue admitting pts to a unit that has no assigned nurses!!???

[maidy]

gosh! if you are having mandatory OT what we have is worse we are called anytime!!! and on our duty days if there is a low census what happens is that they cancell us. like we were already in the hospital and then they tell us to leave now in the middle of the day when census goes up they force us to go back!!! we work 12 hours shift plus the mandatory OT's and we get 13-18 pts in the med surg floor with different acuities... i don't know if this is allowed and are there any BON ruling on this sort of shenanigan? is this allowed or commonplace around here?. btw i am in southern texas. I hope to be enlightened any replies will be greatly appreciated. thanks!!!

[Nellie Nurse]

The unit that I work on signs us up for 1-2 extra 8 hour 3-11pm shifts per schedule. I normally work 7am-7pm. They don't let us pick which days to be signed up for and they are mandatory. If you can't work those days too bad, find someone to switch with. I am very pregnant and 2 weeks ago I was scheduled to work 3 twelve hour shifts and an 8 hour second shift all in a row! When I pointed out to my boss that this is a little much her reply to me was, "Well, at least you get to sleep in on your fourth day because it's a 3-11 shift." She made no attempt to accommodate me at all. I work with a single mom with 3 boys. She usually has to call in on her scheduled extra day because there is no one available to watch her kids on these hours. In addition we have mandation which is not used very often but does happen. So worse case scenario: I could be forced to work 7am-11pm one day and in addition have to come in an extra day that week for an extra 8 hour shift. This is on top of the regularly scheduled hours. I really HATE working extra. If I wanted to work extra I would sign up on my own. That is the worst part about this job and frankly a lot of nurses are getting frustrated and leaving which adds to the problem because then we are signed up for even more extra shifts!