Getting Paid $$ for End-of-Shift Overtime?

[nyforlove]

This was being discussed on a specialty forum, but it applies universally to hospital nurses, so here goes:

Getting Paid for End-of-Shift Overtime

If a Nurse needs to stay an extra hour after a 12-hour shift to finish (which is a likely scenario for a fresh grad), does a Union make sure she gets paid for that hour, where non-Union hospitals may take the attitude, "Well, it's your fault you didn't finish, so you're on your own time..." I heard of a "friend of a friend" who routinely puts in extra time at the end of a shift at a large Manhattan hospital, but NEVER gets paid...now, I won't name the hospital, because I've never actually spoken to him and the problem may be that he fails to fill out the necessary paperwork (he's a bit "unorganized"). At one of my clinical sites, the Recruiting Office at a smaller Bklyn hospital said it does NOT pay for end-of-work overtime, because it feels the nurse failed to arrange her time appropriately....What are your thoughts? It's not as if a nurse can leave EARLY if she's completed all her meds and notes...she must stay until the end of the shift and if something happens a minute before the shift ends, she absolutely should be paid to stay and take care of it if needed to do so (even if her replacement nurse has arrived, but needs assistance).

[catlady, BSN, RN]

Timothy,

YOU are the one who first brought politics into this discussion!

You keep saying that this is not political, yet you are the only one who keeps raising it! Don't shy from your own words!

No one has ever raised the point about overtime being a political problem except YOU!

Ri-ight. The person who wrote this, before Timothy ever posted, must be a phantom:

All I can add is, this November, oust your nearest Republican from office.

Conditions where you work will improve, for you and your patients.

I've been a nurse through four administrations, and I don't think any of them have spent two nanoseconds considering the needs or rights of nurses. They are politicians, and we don't have anything they want.

[steelydanfan]

So, now it's all about us. Darn, nurse; if you had only spent 10 minutes an hour in a more organized timeframe, you would not have to be overtime.

You would have been able to do better for that pt. who went into VT if you had only sat at the desk for 10 minutes last hour during your "sacred time"; ignoring call lights, pt.s families requesting updates and constantly ringing phones.

Utopia is nice, worthwhile dreaming about, but until they are forced to give me more staff and take my charge nurse out of care; it ain't gonna happen. So don't put the blame for my overtime on my poor management skills, put it on my hospitals desire to make a profit off of sick people.

I understand what you are getting at, and I agree; because I often feel that I have trouble catching my breath and regrouping, collecting my thoughts and trying to make a plan for the next hour.I have been a nurse for 27 years, how do you think a new grad must feel?

This is the heart of the problem: what should be vs what is reality.

I want the reality to change to the what should be. If we keep buying into the fact that somehow it is our fault, nothing will change.

[steelydanfan]

OK, CatLady, thanks for the correction.

Cate

[burn out]

I don't think beinga union has anything to do with it. In my state the

wage and labor board requires an employer to pay time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week. Since most of us work 3- 12 hour shift

that is only 36 hours a week, we have to work 4 more extra hours before

we can start getting overtime pay.

[RGN1]

I don't think beinga union has anything to do with it. In my state the

wage and labor board requires an employer to pay time and a half for anything over 40 hours a week. Since most of us work 3- 12 hour shift

that is only 36 hours a week, we have to work 4 more extra hours before

we can start getting overtime pay.

But can you claim the time back or just get paid your normal rate for it? I'm just interested because I'm a UK nurse in the process of coming to the USA.

Here we can claim back the time or just get paid our normal hourly rates (where I work anyway). We never get time & a half though. As long as you at least get your time back or your normal pay that's ok but unpaid or unrecognised overtime is, in my opinion, unnacceptable.

[LydiaNN]

But can you claim the time back or just get paid your normal rate for it? I'm just interested because I'm a UK nurse in the process of coming to the USA.

Here we can claim back the time or just get paid our normal hourly rates (where I work anyway). We never get time & a half though. As long as you at least get your time back or your normal pay that's ok but unpaid or unrecognised overtime is, in my opinion, unnacceptable.

No, if you get paid hourly, the employer is obligated to abide by the labor laws of that state. They do vary, though the minimum standards are set by the federal government. I believe there are states where OT doesn't start automatically after 8 hours. Here in CA, Pete Wilson succeeded in getting that portion of the law overturned, and Gray Davis reinstituted it as one of his first official acts. That in and of itself would've been enough for me to have favored keeping him in office- I was working for a doctor who believed in 10 and 11 hour shifts at the time. I know that Arnold was talking about overturning it, but I'm not sure if that's been successful... unfortunately, I now have an exempt position and there's no such thing as OT for me.

[SharonH, RN]

I can't believe it is even up for discussion. If your work it, you need to get paid for it. All that business about it being your fault if you don't get your work done on time is a load of garbage that nurses put on themselves because we are constantly allowing ourselves to be made to feel guilty for not being "a good nurse".

[nyforlove]

This is from the CA Division of Labor Standards Enforcement site:

http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/FAQ_Overtime.htm

Q.If an employee works unauthorized overtime is the employer obligated to pay for it?

A.

Yes, California law requires that employers pay overtime, whether authorized or not, at the rate of one and one-half times the employee's regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of eight up to an including 12 hours in any workday, and for the first eight hours of work on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek, and double the employee's regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 12 in any workday and for all hours worked in excess of eight on the seventh consecutive day of work in a workweek.

An employer can discipline an employee if he or she violates the employer's policy of working overtime without the required authorization. However, California's wage and hour laws require that the employee be compensated for any hours he or she is "suffered or permitted to work, whether or not required to do so." California case law holds that "suffer or permit" means work the employer knew or should have known about. Thus, an employee cannot deliberately prevent the employer from obtaining knowledge of the unauthorized overtime worked, and come back later to claim recovery. The employer must have the opportunity to obey the law.

---

Can the attorney here give any insight into:

-how "suffer or permit" applies to overtime situations nurses commonly find themselves in?

-doesn't this all fall more under state law than federal - states have HUGE differencces w/ regard to labor law.

Nurses have legal obligations/responsibilities to our state licensing boards: prohibitions against pt. abandonment or incomplete documentation, etc. These supercede obligations/responsibilities we have to our employer. Any nurse will tell you: "my license is more important than any one job." This doesn't even take into account the party with whom our most primary above-all-others obligations/responsibilities lie, our patients.

For those not keeping up, that places the facility you work at 3rd. Priority one, priority two, then them.

This creates a huge conflict: if the license I was hired because of requires me to stay, but my company says I can't (or that I won't get paid if I do), what's the prevailing rule? It's not like I am a factory worker who can just throw my hands up and say: "if you aren't going to pay me, I'm leaving!"

Great question! Now, although I am an attorney, I am currently licensed only in New York State and, as previously stated, never specialized in employment law; nevertheless, I am comfortable discussing these issues in this forum as an individual with an interest in the topic generally, but am NOT providing legal advice in any situation nor even professing that I know the right answer--after all, I'm still a nursing STUDENT! My thoughts are--in the Calif. context with that helpful reg. you posted: Hospitals have reason to know that situations arise where a nurse must stay at the end of shift to complete work--as the nurse thereby "suffers" the need to put in the OT, they must get paid for it even tho' the circumstances that existed did not permit a request for advance authorization and even tho' the hospital did not require that the nurse stay. This wording of the reglt'n is great, because as you point out, even tho' the hospital may not REQUIRE the nurse to stay, the nurse has an ethical duty to stay as dictated by his/her license and the standards of the Calif Nursing Bd. Moreover, by the hospital refusing to pay OT by claiming it wasn't authorized or required-by-the-hospital, such activity could be deemed to be discharging the nurse too soon (i.e., before s/he satisfied her ethical duty to the patient), at which point, the patient may have a lawsuit against the hospital (and the nurse) for failure to provide the contracted/necessary care.....In such a situation, the nurse may claim that the hospital effectively pushed her out the door and caused her to violate her ethical duty to the patient--and sue the hospital for reimbursement of any damages the patient wins against the nurse...Confused yet?

[catlady, BSN, RN]

Great question! Now, although I am an attorney......after all, I'm still a nursing STUDENT!

Well, you know you can't continue this discussion because for a lawyer to go back to become a nurse, you must be certifiably insane!

And before anyone gets mad at me, here are all the appropriate emoticons to show I'M MAKING A JOKE!!!

:chuckle :) :roll

(Still kicking self for not finishing law school when I had the chance.)

My new employer (three weeks) has apparently just implemented a plan to pay time-and-a-half after eight hours, and everyone is scheduled to work 12s, resulting in a blended rate. Of course, they get around actually paying OT by making the base rate insanely low; the blended rate is more in line with what the employee should be earning. I am sure this also benefits the hospital when figuring out insurance, WC, etc. I am told that when a nurse actually works OT by hitting the 40 hour mark, however, they get time-and-a-half calculated on their blended rate, not their base rate.

[oneLoneNurse]

I get paid if I stay after my 12 hour shift. Just last night found out a nursing assistant has been abusing this privilege by going down to the gymn then coming back up to the floor to punch out. I anticipate that management is about ready to clamp down.

[mlnrs1]

as a union employee (CNA), if my shift is slated as 0700-15:30; and I clock out at 1545; I am paid at time and 1/2 for those 15 minutes overtime.

It doesn't kick in after a certain percentage, I don't have to explain or justify it to ANYONE. I am trusted that I put in the hours, it gets PAID.

And THATS what a nursing union can do for you.

**

:kiss

Why does anybody need to hear any more than that to be convinced?

To contrast, at my non-union job (in California) if you stay over "incidentally" and clock out 15 minutes or a half hour after your scheduled shift ends, the administrator manually goes into the system and removes that late punch. He falsifies the time clock record. You may have charted something at 1615, but the time clock says you left the building at 1530. This is illegal in CA (see prev. posts).

We should be ALL be union nurses - we have the power to make it so that you cannot hire a nurse in these United States without negotiating a union contract. We absolutely have that power, yet we don't do it.

We would rather trust our rights to...

...our employer?

I don't understand people.

[mlnrs1]

Great question! Now, although I am an attorney, I am currently licensed only in New York State and, as previously stated, never specialized in employment law; nevertheless, I am comfortable discussing these issues in this forum as an individual with an interest in the topic generally, but am NOT providing legal advice in any situation nor even professing that I know the right answer--after all, I'm still a nursing STUDENT! My thoughts are--in the Calif. context with that helpful reg. you posted: Hospitals have reason to know that situations arise where a nurse must stay at the end of shift to complete work--as the nurse thereby "suffers" the need to put in the OT, they must get paid for it even tho' the circumstances that existed did not permit a request for advance authorization and even tho' the hospital did not require that the nurse stay. This wording of the reglt'n is great, because as you point out, even tho' the hospital may not REQUIRE the nurse to stay, the nurse has an ethical duty to stay as dictated by his/her license and the standards of the Calif Nursing Bd. Moreover, by the hospital refusing to pay OT by claiming it wasn't authorized or required-by-the-hospital, such activity could be deemed to be discharging the nurse too soon (i.e., before s/he satisfied her ethical duty to the patient), at which point, the patient may have a lawsuit against the hospital (and the nurse) for failure to provide the contracted/necessary care.....In such a situation, the nurse may claim that the hospital effectively pushed her out the door and caused her to violate her ethical duty to the patient--and sue the hospital for reimbursement of any damages the patient wins against the nurse...Confused yet?

**

...I hope my administrator is reading this!!

There are other ways to save money. Don't cheat people out of the time they work. It is not only wrong, but according to my attorney (who is an expert in these matters), it is illegal.

:smiley_aa