60 hr work week cap?

Davey Do · Apr 23, 2019

39 minutes ago, Emergent said:
60 hrs a week is 5-12 hour shifts per week. That is a lot! There comes a point where it does become less safe due to fatigue.
Thoughts or information?

My Dad use to work as a welder for 5-12 hour shifts during the week, 8 hours on Saturday, pulled duty as a volunteer fireman two nights a month, successfully worked a small farm, and did other duties as assigned by Mom.

I work 3-12 hour shifts a week and, having delusions of being a hard worker, need two days to recover.

We have such an infinite amount of energy when we're young, we subscribe to the theory of perpetual motion.

When we're old, we argue for our limitations, and, sure enough, they're ours.

klone, MSN, RN · Apr 23, 2019

I think the 8-hour amendment to the bill is ridiculous. I think the amendment that another senator wrote that restricted work to 60 hours/week is reasonable.

OldDude · Apr 23, 2019

10 hours ago, Davey Do said:
My Dad use to work as a welder for 5-12 hour shifts during the week, 8 hours on Saturday, pulled duty as a volunteer fireman two nights a month, successfully worked a small farm, and did other duties as assigned by Mom.
I work 3-12 hour shifts a week and, having delusions of being a hard worker, need two days to recover.
We have such an infinite amount of energy when we're young, we subscribe to the theory of perpetual motion.
When we're old, we argue for our limitations, and, sure enough, they're ours.

In the days of yore when I was a pipefitter, my personal record was I worked 62 straight 12 hour shifts in a push to turn over a refinery for operation; there were many many other periods of working weeks of 12 hour shifts straight. I would be "stepping in post holes" if I worked 3 twelve hours shifts today.

I don't think it's a good idea for the government to force an employer to limit shifts to 8 hours or limit the number of hours an employee may work if they can perform safely and efficiently. On the flip side I believe such deviations from a standard 40 hour work week should not be mandatory or count against an employee if they decline hours outside of the pre-employment standard agreed upon.

quittaRN · Aug 31, 2019

I think a mixture of 12s and 8s is reasonable forcing people to work 8s is not so much since many nurses become nurses because of the flexibility in schedule and working less days a week( 12 hours 3 days full time/ 2 days part time compared to 8 hours 5 days full time and 3 to 4 days part time). Limiting a work week to 60 hours sounds reasonable but not realistic with our shortage in nursing staff nationally. I don't believe that we are all equal when it comes to abilities because I have worked with nurse who barely work and can't keep up or aren't as sharp and I've worked with nurses who can work 30 plus days in a row and still be sharper than everyone in the room and vice versa. So until we have enough nurses for safe patient staffing than it's hard to limit work week hours. (Many hospitals will resort to creating unsafe nurse:patient ratios to make up for the increasing shortage in staffing). Just my opinion.

MunoRN, RN · Aug 31, 2019

Hospitals prefer 8 hour shifts because they are supposedly cheaper, although I have yet to see the math work out that way. In theory, by getting an extra 4 hours per week out of 8 hour nurses, you reduce your nursing staff needs by 1 nurse for every 10 nurses that work 8's instead of 12's, which means they save the cost of benefits and additional overhead for that one extra nurse. In reality, there are additional hours spent in the additional shift change, and typically nurses will seek to work less if they have to work 8 hour shifts. There's also the costs related to fatigue that has been shown to occur when night shifters have to work 5 nights a week instead of 3.

As a weekly average, I would agree that the 60 hour cap is more than reasonable, the main issue is that it does away with the 6-on 8-off schedule, which for working night shift is what I've found to be the least fatiguing by far.