Protecting Direct-Care Healthcare Workers from Mandatory Overtime

[Mayer / Paulin A1903]

THE PROBLEM

• Even before the pandemic, hospitals faced significant staffing challenges. Rather than addressing these issues through hiring and improved workplace conditions, healthcare facilities have required patient care staff to take on more patients and work mandatory overtime—additional hours beyond their regular schedules.
• Forcing healthcare workers to work overtime increases burnout and decreases job satisfaction, leading to higher turnover and worsening staffing shortages. Mandatory overtime also jeopardizes patient safety, as unplanned, prolonged working hours without sufficient rest result in more mistakes, impaired decision-making, and reduced job performance, endangering patients.
• New York State has recognized the impact of mandatory overtime on both patients and staff, enacting laws to protect nurses. However, other frontline healthcare workers essential to patient safety and care, such as respiratory therapists and MRI technicians, also need these protections.

THE SOLUTION

• The proposed legislation would extend the protections against mandatory overtime for nurses to frontline, direct-care healthcare workers. The bill limits the ability of healthcare employers to require healthcare workers to work beyond regularly scheduled hours except in the case of an emergency.