Staying late, not getting paid.

kbrn2002, ADN, RN · May 4, 2015

It is very common for unpaid overtime to be expected or even requested in the LTC environment. I was told during the hiring spiel one time that I would be expected to clock out and finish on my own time. You can bet I didn't challenge the DON when she told me that. Employers take advantage of the employees who need work in an impossible job market and who are too afraid to make complaints to the authorities for fear of putting their name out there in the rarified world of nursing employment.

Behavior like that just shocks me! I can't believe a prospective employer would actually tell you it may be required to work off the clock.

I would never work off the clock for numerous reasons:

If something happens and I get hurt, goodbye workman's comp claim.

If something happens with a resident, hello liability as it's now on me, not the facility.

Even if it's just paperwork, well they don't pay me enough to work as it is so no way am I volunteering my time by working without getting paid

My employer happens to have a strict policy on this anyway and working off the clock is a sure way to lose your job. No excuses, if you are caught doing it you are fired.

lindarn · May 4, 2015

Right to work or not, you can make an anonymous complaint to the Labor Board. No one will ever know.

Keep a record of staying late and not getting paid. Make sure and keep any notices, anything in print, that can be used as evidence.

JMHO and my NY $0.02

Lindarn, RN, BSN, CCRN (ret)

Somewhere in the PACNW

chuckster, ADN, BSN, RN, EMT-B · May 4, 2015

I sympathize, but while it may unethical for your employer to effectively require you to put in uncompensated time, as seems to be the case here, it is probably not a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as has been suggested. The FLSA specifically exempts "executives, administrative, professional and outside sales employees." Registered Nurses, but not LPN's, generally fall into the the professional category, as this quote from the US Department of Labor (http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17n_nurses.pdf) website shows:

Nurses
To qualify for the learned professional employee exemption, all of the following tests must be met:
â€¢ The employee must be compensated on a salary or fee basis (as defined in the regulations) at a rate not less than $455 per week;
â€¢ The employee's primary duty must be the performance of work requiring advanced knowledge, defined as work which is predominantly intellectual in character and which includes work requiring the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment;
â€¢ The advanced knowledge must be in a field of science or learning; and
â€¢ The advanced knowledge must be customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction.
Registered nurses who are paid on an hourly basis should receive overtime pay. However, registered nurses who are registered by the appropriate State examining board generally meet the duties requirements for the learned professional exemption, and if paid on a salary basis of at least $455 per week, may be classified as exempt.

Moreover, the definition of "professional' has eroded considerably from the time (1938) when the FLSA was enacted. As a recent piece in Politico "Whatever Happened to Overtime" pointed out, "By 2013, just 11 percent of salaried workers qualified for overtime pay, according to a report published by the Economic Policy Institute. And so business owners like me have been able to make the other 89 percent of you work unlimited overtime hours for no additional pay at all." (Whatever Happened to Overtime? - Nick Hanauer - POLITICO Magazine)

The sad truth unfortunately is that if you are a salaried RN, making more than $23,660 per year, under Federal law, your employer does not have to pay you extra for work done in excess of 40 hours per week. Welcome to the new America, where corporations have almost all of the rights - but none of the obligations - of individuals.

toomuchbaloney · May 4, 2015

Thank you for all of your input. I am still in the orientation phase of this job. I have about 8 shifts left until I am on my own. Talking to the nurses that have trained me, they have brought this up with management before and nothing gets done. I don't know what to do!

What to do;

Learn your job. You will not be quick or efficient in the beginning so it will take you longer than the experienced nurses. It takes at least 6 months (as a general rule) before a nurse in a new specialty feels like he isn't dangerous and about 12 months before he feels like he/she is competent most of the time on the job.

Chart as you work. Do not save your documentation.

After you are comfortable with your work you and your co-workers need to develop a professional plan to accommodate the mandate for no overtime. That means that there will be tasks that cannot be accomplished within the shift, documentation cannot be one of them as that is your professional duty to chart what you have done. If all of the nurses work together to insure and create a professional work environment it is more difficult for management to abuse just one. In

Prioritize.

Good luck.

blondy2061h, MSN, RN · May 4, 2015

I sympathize, but while it may unethical for your employer to effectively require you to put in uncompensated time, as seems to be the case here, it is probably not a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as has been suggested. The FLSA specifically exempts "executives, administrative, professional and outside sales employees." Registered Nurses, but not LPN's, generally fall into the the professional category, as this quote from the US Department of Labor (http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17n_nurses.pdf) website shows:
Moreover, the definition of "professional' has eroded considerably from the time (1938) when the FLSA was enacted. As a recent piece in Politico "Whatever Happened to Overtime" pointed out, "By 2013, just 11 percent of salaried workers qualified for overtime pay, according to a report published by the Economic Policy Institute. And so business owners like me have been able to make the other 89 percent of you work unlimited overtime hours for no additional pay at all." (Whatever Happened to Overtime? - Nick Hanauer - POLITICO Magazine)
The sad truth unfortunately is that if you are a salaried RN, making more than $23,660 per year, under Federal law, your employer does not have to pay you extra for work done in excess of 40 hours per week. Welcome to the new America, where corporations have almost all of the rights - but none of the obligations - of individuals.

The document you're quoting clearly says RN's may be exempt if salaried, not hourly employees.

VANurse2010 · May 4, 2015

I sympathize, but while it may unethical for your employer to effectively require you to put in uncompensated time, as seems to be the case here, it is probably not a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as has been suggested. The FLSA specifically exempts "executives, administrative, professional and outside sales employees." Registered Nurses, but not LPN's, generally fall into the the professional category, as this quote from the US Department of Labor (http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17n_nurses.pdf) website shows:
Moreover, the definition of "professional' has eroded considerably from the time (1938) when the FLSA was enacted. As a recent piece in Politico "Whatever Happened to Overtime" pointed out, "By 2013, just 11 percent of salaried workers qualified for overtime pay, according to a report published by the Economic Policy Institute. And so business owners like me have been able to make the other 89 percent of you work unlimited overtime hours for no additional pay at all." (Whatever Happened to Overtime? - Nick Hanauer - POLITICO Magazine)
The sad truth unfortunately is that if you are a salaried RN, making more than $23,660 per year, under Federal law, your employer does not have to pay you extra for work done in excess of 40 hours per week. Welcome to the new America, where corporations have almost all of the rights - but none of the obligations - of individuals.

You have to be classified as salary for this to apply. You are grossly mistaken if you think someone who punches a clock is not eligible for overtime or can be required to work without being clocked in.

TheCommuter, BSN, RN · May 4, 2015

You have to be classified as salary for this to apply. You are grossly mistaken if you think someone who punches a clock is not eligible for overtime or can be required to work without being clocked in.

Bingo. I'm an exempt salaried employee who receives a straight 40 hours of pay every week, regardless of how many hours I really work. However, I'm in an administrative, lower managerial position and have not punched a time clock in many moons.

Our floor nurses are classified as nonexempt, and therefore, are entitled to be paid for every minute they are on the clock.

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · May 4, 2015

I sympathize, but while it may unethical for your employer to effectively require you to put in uncompensated time, as seems to be the case here, it is probably not a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as has been suggested. The FLSA specifically exempts "executives, administrative, professional and outside sales employees." Registered Nurses, but not LPN's, generally fall into the the professional category, as this quote from the US Department of Labor (http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17n_nurses.pdf) website shows:

Did you read the DOL link that I posted on pg 1? It specifically addresses "nurses," not "learned professionals," or even the RN-vs-LPN rules. Hourly paid nurses. The OP is not talking about a salaried position such as what the DON probably is; she's referring to hourly paid staff nurses. Hourly paid staff nurses are absolutely entitled to pay for every minute worked, per the federal department of labor.

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · May 4, 2015

You can surely complain. And if you are in a right to work state you will be looking for a job. Its a shame but the truth where I live.

Exactly why the complaint should be w/ the DOL, not with the DON. The complaint will be anonymous, and what's the employer going to do--fire the whole staff to get the whistleblower? I suppose they could...but they'll still have to pay everyone for their hours worked.

suanna · May 5, 2015

All these "don't ever stay off the clock to finish your work" postings are fine, but what is the alternative- progressive discipline for being unable to complete your assigned tasks in the allotted time? It becomes easy for an employer to get rid of any staff member that tries to make a fuss. Me, if it is 10-15min and doesn't involve any hands-on care, I'll stay over and finish up. If it is more than that and is every day, your only alternative is to get ALL the nurses together to document the practice. Be warned, it just takes one brown-nosing individual to say "I'm always done on time" and the whole thing is out the window. I wish I could say this wasn't the norm, but from my experience it is.

Here.I.Stand, BSN, RN · May 5, 2015

I've never had a manager who doles out progressive discipline for not finishing tasks on time. They might have brought up the OT issue in performance reviews, but a response is: "I understand, OT gets expensive. Would you rather I clock out on time and not finish the tasks, or stay and clock out when I am finished?"

What I will not offer as a solution is to finish off the clock. 10 minutes extra is not 10 minutes--for me working PT, if I stayed just 10 minutes past each shift, it comes out to 21.66 hours in a year, and roughly $900.

Now also then, consider that I personally could get in trouble for working off the clock--be it with liability if something happens to me while on premises/off clock, or with legal if I'm found to have committed multiple HIPAA violations. I work in an ICU so again doing the math, 2 patients a day and 5 days a pay period, that is potentially 260 chart accesses off the clock. More if in a single shift I've transferred pts out and taken admits. Heck no, I"m not risking 260 unauthorized chart accesses so that the hospital doesn't have to pay me.

allnurses Guide · May 5, 2015

I sympathize, but while it may unethical for your employer to effectively require you to put in uncompensated time, as seems to be the case here, it is probably not a violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) as has been suggested. The FLSA specifically exempts "executives, administrative, professional and outside sales employees." Registered Nurses, but not LPN's, generally fall into the the professional category, as this quote from the US Department of Labor (http://www.dol.gov/whd/overtime/fs17n_nurses.pdf) website shows:
Moreover, the definition of "professional' has eroded considerably from the time (1938) when the FLSA was enacted. As a recent piece in Politico "Whatever Happened to Overtime" pointed out, "By 2013, just 11 percent of salaried workers qualified for overtime pay, according to a report published by the Economic Policy Institute. And so business owners like me have been able to make the other 89 percent of you work unlimited overtime hours for no additional pay at all." (Whatever Happened to Overtime? - Nick Hanauer - POLITICO Magazine)
The sad truth unfortunately is that if you are a salaried RN, making more than $23,660 per year, under Federal law, your employer does not have to pay you extra for work done in excess of 40 hours per week. Welcome to the new America, where corporations have almost all of the rights - but none of the obligations - of individuals.

At my last position I was salaried meaning I was paid a specific amount each week for the work I did not matter how many hours it tok me to do it. I was not reqired to punch a timeclock or account for each hour of my work day in any way. Some days (Most I wokred 8 hours) once I worked 22 hours straight. I was also required to be available on-cal 24hrs 5 days a week. I never got paid a dime of overtime. That is the definition of salried employee. If you are punching a time clock you are not a salaried employee - You are an hourly employee! Hourly employee's are entitled to overtime! corporate bean counters pressure administrators to cut back on overtime. Failure to do so affects administrative bonuses so they in turn pressure hourly staff who don't know their legal rights to work illegally off the clock. Vicious cycle.

hppy