Nurses Must Be Paid Overtime, Feds Warn

In April, I drove past striking nurses who marched in front of a local Park Nicollet Hospital here in the Twin Cities. Signs proclaimed that understaffing endangered patients, and that nurses and other staffers were underpaid. "What is that about?" I wondered.

Recent industry news explained that, while on an hourly basis nurses were far better off than minimum-wage, they were not being paid all the hours that they worked. Yet, what has been the hospitals' response to nurses' concerns about patient safety and well-being?

They have shed more jobs, forcing more nurses and other personnel to work more hours and be spread more thinly in wards, thereby putting more patients at risk.

Federal investigation of charges that nurses and other hospital employees were routinely not paid for overtime, or made to work through scheduled breaks, has resulted in decisions upholding employee rights.

In one case, a class-action lawsuit against Kaiser Permanente in California was settled, fining Kaiser $7.25 million. Kaiser Permanente had improperly claimed that their employees were exempt from overtime rules affecting hundreds of employees.

The Labor Department has stepped up its enforcement of labor laws, augmented by the addition of 250 new investigators hired by the Obama administration. These 250 investigators are focusing on the single issue of
employee underpayment. Abuses appear to be so widespread that one survey estimates only 36 percent of healthcare employers in the Albany, New York, area are in compliance with labor law.

In a related matter, Boston-based Partners HealthCare System settled accusations they had violated the Fair
Labor Standards Act by agreeing to pay over $2.7 million to the 700 employees affected by the case.

Checking into the situation in Minnesota revealed that nurses are routinely pressured to work unpaid overtime
in every pay period. Sources on AllNurses.com notes that Methodist Hospital nurses, members of the Minnesota Nurses Association (MNA), have videotaped their complaints and posted them to the AllNurses site.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that, in July, hospitals shed another 2,300 jobs that month. This is on top of a reduction in this sector's labor force of 1,400 in May, and an addition of 3,000 positions in June. The roller-coaster progress still leaves hospitals up a net total of 15,200 jobs. This is more than double the added jobs in 2009 in the hospital sector.

But the latest reduction in work force is, according to the nurses unions and websites, too heavily in the highly-skilled and essential nursing workforce. The nurses claim that patient safety is endangered, with the risk of medical errors and untimely intervention much higher than is acceptable.

Sources:

Feds to hospitals: Pay employees what they earn, SMA staff, Senior Market Advisor, undated 2010 article,
http://www.seniormarketadvisor.com/News/2010/8/Pages/Feds-to-hospitals-Pay-what-they-.aspx?sma1

Hospitals Cut Jobs in July, Fed Data Shows, John Commins, Health Leaders Media, August 6, 2010, www.healthleadersmedia.com/content/HR-254786/Hospitals-Cut-Jobs-in-July-Fed-Data-Shows

Potential MN Nurses Strike?, Brian, All Nurses dot com, April 22, 2010, http://allnurses.com/collective-bargaining-nursing/potential-mn-nurses-475170.html