CaseyStelken
Junior Member
Hi there! I'm a first-time user, but I feel I'll be using this forum frequently in the future...
I'm a Registered Nurse who works for a Hospice facility in Eastern Iowa. We've recently been introduced to a new management team who has made an awful lot of changes, some of which are good, and some of which are... questionable, to say the least.
It is common practice in the medical field to put staff "on-call" if the current patient census is not high enough to necessitate the presence of all of the employees scheduled for that shift. So, in these situations, we take turns being on-call, and miss out on our full wages during that time. During this time, we are instead paid a wage of $4/hr to be readily available: to stay at home (or at least close to the facility), to keep our phones close at all times, and to not have any "adult beverages," so that if the patient census changes, we can be available at a moment's notice to come in and do our duty.
In very rare cases, the census and staffing is such that we are "House Requested," meaning it's determined that we absolutely will not be needed for that shift, and we have the day off. In this case, we receive no pay to be "on-call," because we will not be needed, so we're free to go and do as we would on any other day off.
At the facility for which I work, we have a very small staff of nurses and nurse aides, so we operate very independently of management. Historically we have always assessed the staffing before the next shift to determine whether or not we have enough, or too much, staffing, and we respond appropriately. In cases where we have too many staff scheduled, we rarely "House Request" them, and usually put them on-call, because it's such a small staff, and such a small facility, that things can change rapidly and, in most cases, not much change in patient census is required for us to need the on-call staff members to come in and help.
Sorry for the long explanation, but that's important to the story. Here's the problem: recently our nurse manager decided that we're putting staff "on-call" too often (this is mainly because during the past week the census has been unusually low, likely due to the nice weather we've been having here in Eastern Iowa), and she believes we should use the "House request" option more often, to save the facility a few bucks when patient census is particularly low. This seems reasonable, and no one really disagreed with her point... but then she retro-actively removed everyone's "on-call" pay from the past two weeks before today's paychecks were issued.
As far as I'm concerned, this isn't legal. We were being paid a wage (although a small one) to stay at home (or very close to home; we certainly couldn't leave town), watch our phones, and be available, sometimes for as long as 12 hours at a time, because most of us work 12-hour shifts. I've been helping my parents with a lot of things at their house lately, but they live over an hour away, so I certainly couldn't go check anything off of that to-do list. And if a friend or family member were to come to visit me, I certainly couldn't have enjoyed an adult beverage with them. My point is, we're really getting cheated here, and I can't imagine what she's doing is legal. Some people lost a good chunk of money off of today's paycheck that they were expecting from being on-call so much over the past two weeks, and they were already going to be receiving a reduced paycheck from not being able to work their full hours.
Anyway, sorry that this is so long-winded, and thank you for reading!
- Casey
I'm a Registered Nurse who works for a Hospice facility in Eastern Iowa. We've recently been introduced to a new management team who has made an awful lot of changes, some of which are good, and some of which are... questionable, to say the least.
It is common practice in the medical field to put staff "on-call" if the current patient census is not high enough to necessitate the presence of all of the employees scheduled for that shift. So, in these situations, we take turns being on-call, and miss out on our full wages during that time. During this time, we are instead paid a wage of $4/hr to be readily available: to stay at home (or at least close to the facility), to keep our phones close at all times, and to not have any "adult beverages," so that if the patient census changes, we can be available at a moment's notice to come in and do our duty.
In very rare cases, the census and staffing is such that we are "House Requested," meaning it's determined that we absolutely will not be needed for that shift, and we have the day off. In this case, we receive no pay to be "on-call," because we will not be needed, so we're free to go and do as we would on any other day off.
At the facility for which I work, we have a very small staff of nurses and nurse aides, so we operate very independently of management. Historically we have always assessed the staffing before the next shift to determine whether or not we have enough, or too much, staffing, and we respond appropriately. In cases where we have too many staff scheduled, we rarely "House Request" them, and usually put them on-call, because it's such a small staff, and such a small facility, that things can change rapidly and, in most cases, not much change in patient census is required for us to need the on-call staff members to come in and help.
Sorry for the long explanation, but that's important to the story. Here's the problem: recently our nurse manager decided that we're putting staff "on-call" too often (this is mainly because during the past week the census has been unusually low, likely due to the nice weather we've been having here in Eastern Iowa), and she believes we should use the "House request" option more often, to save the facility a few bucks when patient census is particularly low. This seems reasonable, and no one really disagreed with her point... but then she retro-actively removed everyone's "on-call" pay from the past two weeks before today's paychecks were issued.
As far as I'm concerned, this isn't legal. We were being paid a wage (although a small one) to stay at home (or very close to home; we certainly couldn't leave town), watch our phones, and be available, sometimes for as long as 12 hours at a time, because most of us work 12-hour shifts. I've been helping my parents with a lot of things at their house lately, but they live over an hour away, so I certainly couldn't go check anything off of that to-do list. And if a friend or family member were to come to visit me, I certainly couldn't have enjoyed an adult beverage with them. My point is, we're really getting cheated here, and I can't imagine what she's doing is legal. Some people lost a good chunk of money off of today's paycheck that they were expecting from being on-call so much over the past two weeks, and they were already going to be receiving a reduced paycheck from not being able to work their full hours.
Anyway, sorry that this is so long-winded, and thank you for reading!
- Casey
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