Labor laws and nurses.......

[onecitizen]

Someone posted recently asking about the overtime Law now and how it will affect nurses(or something similar). I found this in my current Nursing2004 Magazine yesterday:

http://www.nursing2004.com/pt/re/nursing/fulltext.00152193-200407000-00041.htm

Seems the nurses got some of what they wanted. Helped Policemen too!

Ya gotta love nurses!:loveya:

[Warpy]

1. Nurses are the main targets of that law

Hospitals have wanted to put nurses on salary for years. Right now, with the nursing shortage the way it is, there is forced overtime at most hospitals, and I'm talking about 12 hour shifts of forced overtime. Exhausted nurses burn out their bodies and are likelier to make mistakes when they're forced to work this long.

Studies have been done of interns and residents showing how they tend to screw up when they're sleepwalking. Few studies have been done on nursing staffs forced to work long shifts with forced overtime. The latest one I've read said mistakes start to happen around the twelfth hour, and I believe it. Add to that the way they've cut staffing to barely adequate levels (if nothing goes wrong) and cut hospital stays so the places are filled with only the sickest patients and you have a real recipe for disaster.

The change in the FSLA was a welcome one. However, look for these hospital CEOs to try to put nurses on salary and increase the number of shifts per week each nurse will have to work.

My advice? Don't get sick.

[onecitizen]

2. Amen and you are so right!

That is exactly what my hospital did to me and about 300 other nurses. They tried to make it sound like we were being given some great title to be coveted, but in fact, it was a way they could work us to the bone and not have to pay us for it. A lot of the nurses never "got it" and wouldn't help those of us who were outraged to fight back. Some had good reasons to not make waves, like they were the sole bread winner in the family and needed the money and the benefits.

[Bunny]

3. It's one thing I've never understood about switching people

to salaried instead of hourly. Doesn't one of the tests of exempt v. non-exempt consist of whether the employee has supervisory authority, i.e., hiring, firing, disciplinary action, etc? If so, are they going to also bestow these responsibilites on already over-worked nurses? How will that fix anything?

I thought that there were pretty clear-cut guidelines about making people salaried. How would hospital CEO's meet these guidelines?

A few years back I remember that many pharmacists were complaining because they were made into salaried employees and had to work really long hours for no extra pay. Maybe this is unique to the health care industry?

[Warpy]

4. The dodge is that RNs supervise LPNs and aides

although as a practical matter, most LPNs function at nearly the same level as RNs and any aide worth his or her paycheck is a crackerjack worker who needs no supervision. However, it looks like the RNS are supervisors on the company pecking order chart, and that's how they get away with it.

[Bunny]

5. Oh, okay.

I was assuming there was a Head Nurse or something that did these things.

If I'm in the hospital, I would hope that my nurses and doctors were reasonably rested. This is such a crock, and if you're going to mandate these nurses to work long hours, at least have the decency to fairly compensate them!!