BILL ANALYSIS Ó AB 840 Page 1 Date of Hearing: April 29, 2015 ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS Jimmy Gomez, Chair AB 840 (Ridley-Thomas) - As Introduced February 26, 2015 ----------------------------------------------------------------- |Policy |PERSS |Vote:|6 - 1 | |Committee: | | | | | | | | | | | | | | ----------------------------------------------------------------- Urgency: No State Mandated Local Program: NoReimbursable: No SUMMARY: This bill prohibits mandatory overtime for registered nurses, licensed vocational nurses, and certified nursing assistants (CNAs) employed in state hospitals and facilities, except under the following circumstances: 1)When that nurse or CNA is participating in a surgical procedure and that procedure is still in progress or has not been completed. AB 840 Page 2 2)When an unanticipated and non-recurring catastrophic event has occurred and results in such a large number of patients in need of immediate medical treatment that the facility is incapable of providing sufficient nurses or CNAs to attend to the patients without resorting to mandatory overtime. FISCAL EFFECT: Annual GF costs greater than $3.0 million to the Department of State Hospitals (DSH) and the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (DCR) to hire additional nurses to cover the hours currently worked as mandatory overtime; additional GF costs likely to hire additional CNAs. COMMENTS: 1)Purpose. According to the author, mandatory overtime is a practice used by hospitals and health care institutions to maintain adequate numbers of staff nurses through forced overtime, often with a total of twelve to sixteen hours worked. This bill bans mandatory overtime for public sector nurses and CNAs. The use of mandatory overtime for nurses in the private sector was banned in 2001 through wage orders from the Industrial Welfare Commission. State and public sector AB 840 Page 3 nurses were exempted from this order. According to the author, mandatory overtime may cause or lead to increased stress on nurses and CNAs, less patient comfort, and mental and physical fatigue among nurses and CNAs, contributing to errors and "near-misses" with medications and case-related procedures. According to information provided by the author, West Virginia, Illinois, Connecticut, Washington, Oregon, New Jersey, Minnesota, Maine, Maryland, Alaska, and Massachusetts have laws prohibiting the use of mandatory overtime as a general staffing practice. 2)Difficulty recruiting state nurses. California's state hospitals primarily serve patients within the criminal justice system. The challenges associated with treating this patient population have historically led to difficulties in attracting nursing staff, particularly to state hospitals and facilities in remote locations. In 2005, a similar effort to ban mandatory overtime was proposed in AB 1184 (Koretz) and vetoed by Governor Schwarzenegger because the state was already having a difficult time recruiting and training nurses for state hospitals. According to DSH and DCR, those difficulties continue to hamper current efforts to recruit nurses and CNAs. AB 840 Page 4 3)If At First You Don't Succeed? The state's current mandatory overtime rules with nurses and CNAs were subject to and agreed upon in collective bargaining agreements between the state and hospital employees. This bill risks circumventing the collective bargaining process and the good faith collective bargaining agreements negotiated between the parties by imposing additional statutory restrictions on hours, an area previously left to the collective bargaining process. This bill is very similar to AB 2155 (Ridley-Thomas) from last year, which also attempted to modify terms agreed to in collective bargaining, and was vetoed by the Governor. In his veto message, the Governor stated "[the] measure covers matters more appropriately settled through the collective bargaining process." Analysis Prepared by:Joel Tashjian / APPR. / (916) 319-2081 AB 840 Page 5