Connecticut: Just say no
At Danbury Hospital in Danbury, Conn., there's no mandatory overtime and never has been. A few years ago, management tried to get contract language permitting mandatory overtime. Union president Carol Flynn told them, "That's a strike issue." They pulled back.  The contract does not explicitly forbid mandatory overtime, but since there is not history of it, Flynn is confident that any unilateral move by management to introduce it could be stopped in arbitration as a violation of past practice.

Wisconsin: Just say hardly ever
The new contract at Burlington Memorial Hos[ital in Burlington, Wis., forbids mandatory overtime except in three emergency situations:

• a sisaster such as a multiple car accident;

• an unplanned absence that occurs with fewer than 24 hours' notice; and

• the first 24 hours of an emergency high census in which patients would otherwise have to be sent to another hospital.

Even in a permitted situation, hospital administrators must exhaust a series of steps before ordering a nurse to stay.  The steps include seeking volunteers, trying to hire an agency nurse, looking elsewhere in the hospital and calling other hospitals in the Aurora Health Care chain, which owns Burlington Memorial.

No one can be mandated when they are already home, and no one can be mandated to work outside of his or her normal duty area.

New York: Make them hire staff
At Staten Island Hospital, mandatory overtime was "the biggest, hottest burning issue" in contract talks last spring, according to Anne Goldman, RN, special representative for the Federation of Nurses/UFT.  "We've had people mandated to work an extra eight-hour shift three times in 10 days," said chapter chair Nancy Bentsen.

Under the new contrace, management hired two nurses immediately and agreed to hire an extra nurse after any quarter-year in which there are more than 300 mandatory overtime hours.  The 300-hour limit was reached in the first quarter and a new nurse was hired.  Figures for the second quarter were not available when Healthwire went to press, but union leaders think mandatory overtime was probably below the limit.

In addition to the hiring rules, the contract also created a labor-management team to review the situation floor by floor and shift by shift. "They don't want to have to hire another nurse, so they're interested in any ideas we have for holding it down," said chapter vice chair Nancy Miller.  "Slowly but surely, it's making a difference.  We still have some, but it's much more controlled."