WHEREAS:

Since the restructuring of the health care industry in the 1990s, employers across the country, especially in acute care settings, have increasingly imposed mandatory overtime work on nurses and other health care employees as a way to staff the health care workplace. This problem has become especially serious given the current shortage of nurses; and

WHEREAS:

The growth in the use of mandatory overtime has been a contentious problem at the bargaining table and an issue in strikes by AFSCME members and other organized nurses over the last few years in several states; and

WHEREAS:

Because many employers have routinized the use of mandatory overtime as an alternative to appropriate staffing, it is no longer an occasional requirement prompted by an emergency or unforeseen event, but rather a regular and frequent demand on nurses; and

WHEREAS:

Nurses who refuse mandatory overtime are often subject to disciplinary action and in some cases are even at risk of losing their licenses to practice under threats by employers to formally charge them with patient abandonment; and

WHEREAS:

Mandatory overtime compromises patient care. Relying on exhausted nurses to deliver care creates an environment where medical errors and poor quality care are inevitable; and

WHEREAS:

Unless the problem of mandatory overtime is addressed, nurses will continue to leave the profession, undermining efforts to cope with the nursing shortage.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED:

That AFSCME advance legislation at the federal and state levels to limit the ability of employers to impose mandatory overtime on nurses and to give nurses the right to refuse overtime without fear of discrimination or retaliation; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED:

That AFSCME support the right of nurses to say "NO" to overtime work when they feel it is not safe for themselves or their patients. AFSCME will continue to use collective bargaining and labor/management committees to address these issues.

SUBMITTED BY:

Kathy Sackman, President and Delegate
UNAC/NUHHCE/AFSCME 1199
California

Bonnie Marpoe, President and Delegate
AFSCME Local 2245, Council 89
Pennsylvania