are there many overtime pay in Canada

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Oct 9, 2007

There's lots of overtime in my hospital. But they sure don't like to pay for it.

backtocanada · Oct 11, 2007

Then you Canadian nurses just accept it without any fighting?

agent66 · Oct 11, 2007

I know in our critical care areas in our hospital there is overtime every shift to those who want it. My pal in ICU says the staffing clerk calls her every day off to see if she can do overtime so definately available. They don't have a problem getting paid for it either. In Ontario also the contract for part time workers was changed to give us overtime if we worked more than 2 weekends out of four, regardless of our regular hours worked, so I can work only 4 shifts in 2 weeks and pick up a shift on my week-end off and get paid OT for it, not a bad deal.

Fiona59 · Oct 11, 2007

I work in the same town but a different hospital than Jan. There is plenty of overtime available BUT how it is approached depends on your unit manager. My Manager is fair and offers it strictly by the seniority basis, RN's only get offered PN shifts if all available PNs have been contacted and declined. Charge Nurses have been reported for giving PN shifts to their friends without offering it PNs who are on the floor.

I've heard some managers who are really watching the budget will ask you to "swap" your day off in order to have you work a week end shift at straight time, or ask a 8 hour person to pull a 12 hour shift at straight time. The answer to this is NO and then contact your union.

Contracts are written for a reason. Eight hour people, turn into double time pay after 7.75 hours, so a 12 should never be pulled at straight time if you are hired on 8 hour shifts. Week ends are written into the contract.

Know your contract and your pay rights.

Pediatric Critical Care Columnist · Oct 16, 2007

It's the missed-break OT and the end-of-shift OT that is never paid for that bugs me. Sure, they'll call in OT when the staffing is rotten, but they don't notice that people aren't getting their breaks until it's too late, or they don't see that no one has helped out with the admission and now that nurse is still sitting there charting at 8 o'clock. "No, sorry, you won't be getting OT for that because you didn't tell someone in time that you weren't going to get your break/you needed help doing admission tasks so you could get your charting done. No you did NOT need to stay and help the oncoming nurse resus the patient/get that stat chest x-ray/restrain the patient so the day nurse could give sedation... the day staff could have done that. Blahblahblahblahblah". This health region gets hundreds of hours of unpaid OT every day for stuff like that. The contract is so ambiguous that it isn't helpful. No one cares or tries to fix it.

Fiona59 · Oct 17, 2007

My unit is good at paying for missed meal breaks.

But I agree that the shift change stuff sucks. Report should only take 15 minutes people. I resent the before shift stuff, where you are expected to help out because you are there.