Guaranteed Hours????????

[travelcrazyRN]

Hello,

I'm new to traveling and am completing my second assignment. Before I started my first assignment I asked about guaranteed hours. They said "well it's not likely you will be called out and you aren't responsible for housing costs if they call you out, but you won't be paid." I went ahead and took the assignment, and was never called out. I was also told this by another company after I said I couldn't travel without guaranteed hours (just to see what they say). They aren't sister companies eithers. Every experienced traveller tells me to get hours gauranteed so I will be paid no matter what , even if they cancel my contract. How do I do this??????? Does it exsist with most travel positions? Companies tell me it isn't possible, but nurses tell me they have it in their contract. I have also tried to negociate the wages but without much success. Can someone give me some pointers for negociating. I don't want to be the lowest paid traveller for every assignment. Should I negociate BEFORE I'm submitted to a hosptial or AFTER I'm offered a position? Please, any advice would be appreciated.

[travelcrazyRN]

ok all you travellers, someone has to have advise on this subject.

[fergus51]

My contract specifies I can be cancelled once in a 2 week pay period. My other hours are guaranteed. I've been travelling with the same company for almost 2years and have never been cancelled. Some companies do guaranteed hours in their contracts, some don't. At my current hospital, it's Fastaff and On Assignment that have guarantees. I've had negative experiences with both companies so I chose to stay with mine and risk being cancelled. It never happens though...

[bagladyrn, RN]

Whether or not I have guaranteed hours varies from contract to contract. The hospital has to agree to it in their contract - the agency is not going to want to "eat" those hours if the hospital isn't reimbursing them for it. Usually the contract will state that guaranteed hours will be paid if you are called off by the facility, have made yourself available to a reasonable degree to make up the hours and were not able to do so. This is a completely separate issue from a cancelled contract. I have never heard of anyone being paid for the remaining hours on a cancelled contract.

Just as a side note, certain contracts (AZ is infamous for this) will have a clause built in stating that you can be called off for a certain number of hours per pay period or shifts per contract. I have accepted these contracts when I knew I could budget with the lower hours and found that it did help to keep the staff nurses from being resentful that they were being low censused "because we can't call the traveler off". I found those unexpected shifts off sort of feel like getting a "snow day" when I was a schoolkid :) Of course if they then get busy and call me back in, I get time and a half for those hours (and call pay for the hours not worked).