UNDERSTAFFED
AND OVERWORKED — Nurses look to the state
Legislature and Congress for laws to require safe
staffing levels and end forced overtime.
PEF nurses focus support on key bills in Legislature,
Congress
Legislative
relief prescribed for overworked nurses
By LENORE BORIS
The PEF Statewide Nurses Committee has identified safe
staffing and mandatory overtime as the two most important
nursing issues for the state Legislature to address this
year.
The union is working to improve these conditions through
local and statewide labor-management activities. But,
increasingly frustrated by the slow progress, nurses are
calling for legislative solutions.
Limiting overtime
Registered nurses must have relief from excessive
mandatory overtime and PEF has taken the lead in drafting
legislation. Introduced in the Legislature as bills A7127
and S3515, it would limit the consecutive hours a nurse
can be required to work. Nurses would not be required to
work beyond their regularly scheduled work hours, but
could volunteer to work additional hours.
The PEF Nurses Committee hopes this legislation will end
the common practice of many state and other health
providers of depending on forced overtime to fill
staffing gaps instead of working to recruit and retain
adequate staff.
Efforts also are underway to get a national limit on
mandatory overtime for nurses. A bill in Congress, the
“Registered Nurses and Patient Protection Act,”
would limit nurses to eight hours per workday or 80 hours
per 14-day work period, except for voluntary overtime.
In New York, bills A2025 and S1380 have been introduced
to limit the maximum hours a nurse may work to 16 hours
in a day. However, PEF feels this approach is inadequate
to end the excessive use of mandated overtime.
Safe staffing
Mandating nurse-patient ratios is seen by some nurses as
the only kind of legislation that would motivate
employers to staff appropriately.
PEF anticipates legislation that comprehensively
addresses staffing concerns throughout the healthcare
industry. Such legislation would establish appropriate
staffing based on the characteristics of each facility
and the acuity of patients. Further the staffing levels
would be determined with the advice of registered nurses.
Two bills in the state Legislature are intended to
improve staffing. One, S117, addresses hospital staffing,
and the other, A4171, focuses on nursing-home staffing.
While these bills help to highlight the issue, they would
offer no relief to a significant portion of PEF nurses.
PEF supports another legislative approach that focuses on
the link between adequate staffing and safe, quality
patient care. Assembly Bill 2581 and Senate Bill 517
focus on public disclosure of nursing-quality indicators,
such as nosocomial infections and registered-nurse
staffing levels.
Concerns about the quality of patient care also have led
the Statewide Nurses Committee to support two other
pieces legislation — a repeal of the exempt clause
and any efforts to expand application of the clause. The
exempt clause permits unlicensed people to perform
nursing tasks that should only be performed by licensed
nurses.
And the union is not ready to give up on a measure that
would prohibit retaliation against health-care workers
who advocate for quality care. This Whistleblower
legislation unanimously passed the Senate and Assembly in
2000, only to be vetoed by the governor. It has been
reintroduced in the state Assembly as A3259.