BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 840
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Date of Hearing: April 29, 2015
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
Jimmy Gomez, Chair
AB
840 (Ridley-Thomas) - As Introduced February 26, 2015
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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