Search: 05/2016

I’ve witnessed over and over again how the dangerous staffing practice of mandatory overtime has devastated the family lives of nurses.

My co-worker at Patton State Hospital decided to work the night shift because she is a single mother of two young boys.  Her youngest son was 5 years old, starting kindergarten, and needed someone to take him to school in the morning when management informed her that she’d need to work mandatory overtime. She was devastated and wondered how she’d get her son to school as she had no family around to help.

To this day I get very emotional about a friend of mine and colleague who had to resign from State Service under pressure from the burden of mandatory overtime.

He was forced with choosing between the overwhelming pressure of mandatory overtime being used as a regular staffing tool and the ability to take care of his family who had a catastrophic event change their lives. It put him in the unexpected position of being a caregiver to his three young grandchildren, one of which was six months old.

I was exposed to the severe negative impact of mandatory overtime in 2009. My husband was terminally ill with liver cancer when I was constantly stressed with the mandates that I was subjected to regularly.

On many occasions I had to leave my husband alone at home because I was threatened with adverse action if I refused a mandate and my FMLA was not honored.