Nurses outraged by plan to strip health professionals of overtime pay

PennyLane, RN · Jul 2, 2003

Originally posted by rachaelm4
I JUST READ THE PROPOSAL AT THE DEPT OF LABOR AND IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THEY ARE CUTTING OVERTIME FOR NURSES, READ IT FOR YOURSELVES..

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/esa/ESA2003146.htm http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/541Handout.htm http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/541_Side_By_Side.htm

As I understand it, the problem is that nurses will be considered 'learned professionals', meaning they receive on-the-job or community college training, and therefore will be EXEMPT from receiving overtime pay.

http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/541Handout.htm

geekgolightly, BSN, RN · Jul 2, 2003

Originally posted by rachaelm4
I JUST READ THE PROPOSAL AT THE DEPT OF LABOR AND IT DOESN'T SOUND LIKE THEY ARE CUTTING OVERTIME FOR NURSES, READ IT FOR YOURSELVES..

http://www.dol.gov/opa/media/press/esa/ESA2003146.htm http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/541Handout.htm http://www.dol.gov/_sec/media/speeches/541_Side_By_Side.htm

Read these and tell me what you think

Bush Continues Attack on Overtime

The U.S. Department of Labor is accepting public comments until June 30 on the proposal to cut overtime pay, reduce overtime protections and cut the take-home pay of millions of working Americans.

The Bush administration is pressing forward to have their over-time "pay cuts" go into effect as soon as September. This will affect millions of workers, many of which depend on their over-time to make ends meet. The Bush administration's plan would continue to chip away at the 40 hour work week. Chances are that when you speak of overtime, it will be in the "past tense" if the Bush administration has its way.

Of the average workers who receive it, overtime pay makes up about one-fourth of their weekly earnings. This will mean an average pay cut of $161 per week and can add up to thousands per year.

Some highlights or should we say "lowlights" from the Bush proposal:

Excludes previously protected workers by reclassifying them as managers, administrative or professional employees who are not eligible for overtime pay.

Eliminates certain middle-income workers from overtime protections by adding an income limit, above which workers no longer qualify for overtime.

Removes from overtime protection large numbers of workers in aerospace, defense, health care, high tech and other industries.

http://www.cwa-legis-pol.org/hottopics/bushplan.pdf

AND

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?c108:1:./temp/~c108jvnHRB::

Which essentially states that those who have overtime can be compensated by "paid time off" rather than overtime.

If they don;t getcha one way, they will surely getcha another way.

eb_rn · Jul 2, 2003

Being outraged isnt enough, we must contact our gov. officials and press for change. Keep talking and writing until we are heard. Contact our local newspapers and have a letter published in the opinions section. Our country is based on democracy, but for it to work, we must use all of our avenues and oppertunities, which means Doing Something, not just talking about it. I am sending email and written letters to my gov. officials, locally as well as in DC.

Enabled · Jul 3, 2003

Originally posted by NRSKarenRN
Some nurses are outraged over a quiet move by the U.S. Department of Labor that could strip registered nurses and other health professionals nationwide from overtime pay.

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, June 25, 2003

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-znurses25jun25,0,947779.story?coll=sfla-news-sfla

It has been a while since I posted and when I saw this in my email I couldnl't believe it. When I wqs a clerk/tech up north we got time and a half with 8 hours off if it was a holiday. I will be finishing up my degree in Nursing in Dec. and wonder if I should return now. After twenty years and they want to take it away. No way. That overtime of the past is what is giving me the opportunity to go on.

Just in the last couple of months the University of Central Florida got a raise around $250,000. The tuition went up by 12%. Now they are to be capped by the legislature. They have been piling it on for years. What do college presidents do other than to sit in on meetings that someone else has planned out. a photo op with new construction, or just a PR person. I don't believe it is fair if the student body is increasing and most of the financial aid comes out of the federal government then why are rates so high.

I guess it is still the ol' boys syndrome. She is a woman and she doesn't need much. Many women are supporting children without any help and going to school. I was once told that things would not be better until there were more men Hog WASH

ENABLED

Jennerizer, ASN, RN · Jul 3, 2003

According to the first article, it only affects those in nursing that make over $65,000 annually (not including overtime). Basically, unless you are currently making more than $30-35 an hour, it won't affect you at all.

I imagine that if this does take effect, the future of nursing would be agency related in which the nurse is no longer an employee, but rather a sub-contractor & will be able to negotiate their own pay rate. We are after all professionals, so we should be demanding a professional salary.

ainz · Jul 3, 2003

Nurses are educated professionals. Let us conduct ourselves as such. We do not need unions to speak for us. We do not need to try to find another field. We do not need to sit back and allow the leadership of healthcare organizations to make decisions that will maximize their profits and personal bonuses at the expense of patient care (believe me, these issues are at the root of this OT issue). We need to learn the realities of the environment we are working in and the nature of the people we are dealing with. We need to learn how to utilize the political process to bring about change by creating new law. We are not at the mercy of "administration." We need qualified nurses with additional management and finance education to assume positions of leadership, authority, and decision-making in our healthcare organizations and get the accountants, lawyers, business degree people out of these positions. Our product is healthcare. We need people with clinical expertise to provide the leadership in our healthcare organizations. Nurses have the best view. If we (collectively as nurses) continue to sit back and behave like down-trodden, powerless refugees at the mercy of the "evil and powerful administration," we will continue to be the receivers of idiotic and profit-driven decisions and policies that will keep us frustrated and behaving like mere hourly employees with no real power. What do you think your hospital/organization would be like if nurses (with the proper additional education) held the positions of CEO, COO, CFO, VP, etc., and incorporated the ethics and values of nursing into their decisions and focused on taking care of patients? Many business people that currently hold such positions would say the organization would go bankrupt. What do you think nurses?

Hellllllo Nurse, BSN, RN · Jul 3, 2003

I think that we keep SAYING that we are "PROFESSIONALS" but that we are not treated like professionals, we don't have the power of professionals.

Part of my daily RN duties include scrubbing trash cans, and refilling paper towel and soap dispensers. How professional is that?

We do not have the united front that most professionals do.

So, although it may be very unpopular for me to say so, I really do not think nursing is yet a profession. It's struggling to be one, but its not, IMO.

I would DEARLY LOVE to be in a union. I think a national nurses union would be the best thing that could happen to nursing.

Enabled · Jul 3, 2003

First of all I was in a union and it only collected my dues and didn't help with I needed it. Hopefully, we will have even our hours of care on a patient's bill instead of being included in the room charge. We go to all computer and the dumb MDs still won't do their own looking up.

The nurses that weren't union where I worked last were still covered by any additions the union was able to bargain for. The hospital would not allow for long term disability for the "professional" staff but for everyone else. Now that I am disabled I am fighting like hell to get back to work.

We have been downgraded ever since Florence came on the scene. A friend is a nurse manager and she went from being charge and working as a nurse manager for 6 mos. without any training and when overtime had to be paid the money bags told her the RNs are milking the overtime. I wish I could have been in that room because she is someone who cares about her staff and the patients' welfare. At 6 mos. they gave her a week of training when she had already been doing the schedule and the budget for the u nit. We are walked on continuously and it has to stop.

I believe in union as far as working conditions and some salary. However, having been a history teacher before my 20 as a nurse unions have gone way overboard when someone is getting a couple of hundred to dig holes. Look at the waste of the post office. Those prices will continue to go up until the few that use it can no longer afford it.

The hourly rate here in Fl. to get your car repaired was over $60/hr because the book says taking out 3 bolts and changing the part and putting the 3 bolts back in takes 2 hours. We need to get real. We are not compensated for what we do or have done or will do.

Talking about profit. I was in the hospital in December and I had to have fingersticks. They charged me four times a day $23.00. Come on I can buy over a month and a half on what they were getting in one day.And you know they get discounts because they buy in quantity. Let's make our positions respected more than they are now and that is almost nil. ANA and the state nursing associations I haven't seen anything coming down the pike from them. They just keep quoting information about the shortage.

I recently gave a presentation on nursing to high school and junior high school students who were disadvantaged. The were to stay at a college and various departments put on a presentation in the health field. The main questions dealt with money not being enough so that they could have their sport cars. When asked the approximately 50 students if they would consider nursing not one raised their hand. I guess they are smarter than we give some kids credit for. I don't know if I could honestly recommend nursing to anyone. It is fine for me but with the way things are there is going to be a major change before any of this will be resolved.

The kids in their late teens and early twenties most have no idea in the world of what they want to do or what they need to do it. There is no longer a work ethic or anything else for that matter. Their parents were given as much as their parents could give as they wanted a better life but they don't understand that times have changed and they need to take on responsibility.

Beginning this weekend I am going to write each member Congress and see what kind of a respons I get. I wrote to a local congressman and I got a letter back about the enviroment when I had asked for his views on mental health parity law.

According to most polls nursing is one of the most respected careers even over doctors. Then why don't we get the respect and the professional respect and not a servant to the docs. I once had a doc ask for a chart and I kept going and said it was in the rack. It was right in front of him and he made a big deal of it.

Many years ago med students, up to attendings were required to switch places with nursing so that they had an idea of what it was like. I think they need to reinstitute that practice. I think some of the administrators who are doing all the talking should put on a set of scrubs and work with a tech on each shift then with a nurse. they couldn't keep up. Many then they would understand what we go through in a day. I really doubt it.

ainz · Jul 3, 2003

Nursing is continuing to struggle with defining itself as a true profession, it does not quite meet all of the criteria. However, in order to become something, such as a professional, you must first visualize yourself as a professional, think of yourself as a professional, and behave as a professional. It is disturbing and disheartening to me to read/hear comments made by nurses that say we are not professionals, we don't have the power, we are not united, and then they sort of throw in the towel and say "oh well, we need a union because we can't manage this ourselves." To that I say BS!! Anything worth having is worth fighting for. Nothing comes easy or cheap in this world and respect and recognition with adequate compensation for nurses is no exception. I am proud to be a RN. I make a valuable contribution to the outcome of our patients. Nurses provide a unique service and hospitals cannot survive without them, nurses need to understand this fact, it is a tremendous source of power and leverage. We need nurses to pursue leadership positions and to get involved in the legislative process. If not, then we will continue to scrub trash cans, get paid by the hour, get screwed regularly by administration, be treated as inferiors by the doctors, and end up having to ask a union to come take care of our business because we do not have the where-with-all to handle it ourselves!!

-jt · Jul 3, 2003

I agree with you about getting involved in the legislative process but we dont ask a union to come in and handle our business for us. We ask an RN union to come in and help us handle it ourselves and so we can have the labor law protections that guarantee organized workers a share of control along with the employer.

"The union" is not some third party outsider coming in to take care of our business for us. Its us taking care of our own business. Ours is an RN union - run for & by the staff RNs. We are doing exactly the kind of things that you suggest. The staff nurses at the facility take care of their own business themselves, with their collective strength, but they're doing it with the expertise of the RN union resources and the binding legal power of union labor laws that they wouldnt have backing them if they werent a union. Without that legal backing, the employer still has the ultimate control and final say.

VickyRN, MSN, DNP, RN · Jul 3, 2003

"The union" is not some third party outsider coming in to take care of our business for us. Its us taking care of our own business. Ours is an RN union - run for & by the staff RNs. We are doing exactly the kind of things that you suggest. The staff nurses at the facility take care of their own business themselves, with their collective strength, but they're doing it with the expertise of the RN union resources and the binding legal power of union labor laws that they wouldnt have backing them if they werent a union. Without that legal backing, the employer still has the ultimate control and final say.

This is wonderful. Wish we could have this everywhere. Even breathing the "U" word will get your fanny kicked out the door fast in the hospitals around here.

jnette, ASN, EMT-I · Jul 3, 2003

Originally posted by VickyRN
This is wonderful. Wish we could have this everywhere. Even breathing the "U" word will get your fanny kicked out the door fast in the hospitals around here.

HA HA !!! My thoughts exactly, Vicki ! I posted sth. onthis on one of the other threads on this OT topic. Folks here a ever so subtly THREATENED if they even mention that "U"word ! :rolleyes: And not just hospitals, but all other businesses.