Help! Forced to leave before next shift?

[Halawaii]

I'm in the US (in MI). My employer has decided that since the unit is so far over budget, the solution is to send 1 RN and 1 PCT home an hour and a half early each shift - writing out report for the next shift while the Charge RN "looks over their patients for an hour and a half."

Is this legal? I am hired for 36 hours and they are forcing me home, making it 34. What happens then is payroll automatically takes 2 hours of my PTO to pay me! Our staffing matrix calls for me to stay - this is solely so they can save money because my PTO is not paid out of their budget. Can they do this?

I don't feel it is safe for my patients either - to have 3 nurses in 3 hours, for the next nurse to receive report from someone who has just "been watching over them" for an hour and a paper I wrote out! Can I refuse to leave in order to protect my patients? Is there a stated law?

[jennylee321]

This is outrageous.

[Crush]

Similar thing happened at my first job. Not to me but another nurse. Anyways, she filed unemployment for those shifts they told her to stay home. She somehow did it for that time only. So the hospital started finding other ways to utilize staff other than sending us home.

I have no idea of the legalities or specifics of how she did that though. Best wishes.

[JKL33]

I don't know about the PTO and that aspect of it, but I do know that until this gets straightened out, I would give my usual report to the charge nurse, and I would document that the care of those patients was turned over to Suzy Q, RN Charge nurse. If the charge nurse says that's not how this is supposed to work, call the supervisor and inform them you will not be leaving without turning over the care of your patients - maybe they would like to take report from you, instead.