AB 152

Under current law, subject to certain exceptions, an employer must pay an

employee who receives an hourly wage one and one-half times the employee's

regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 40 hours per week. Current law,

however, subject to certain exceptions for child labor, does not prohibit an employer

from requiring an employee to work in excess of 40 hours per week.

This bill prohibits a health care facility from requiring an employee of the

health care facility, or an employee of a temporary help agency or professional

employer organization placed with the health care facility, who is involved in

providing direct health care services for patients, residents, or clients or in providing

clinical or laboratory services and who is paid an hourly wage or is classified as a

nonsupervisory employee for collective bargaining purposes (health care worker) to

work for more than a regularly scheduled daily work shift that has been determined

and agreed to before the performance of the work (overtime) or to be on on-call time,

which the bill defines as time during which a health care worker is required to be

ready to report to work on short notice if the need arises, in lieu of working overtime

or as a means of circumventing the prohibition under the bill against mandatory

overtime. The prohibitions under the bill do not apply in cases in which the health

care worker consents to working overtime or to being on on-call time, in cases in

which the health care worker's continued presence through the completion of an

ongoing medical or surgical procedure is essential to the health and safety of a

patient, or in cases of unforeseeable emergency, which the bill defines as a major

disaster or emergency declared by the president of the United States; a state of

emergency, including a state of emergency related to public health, declared by the

governor or by the governing body of a county, city, village, or town; or any other

unanticipated or unavoidable disaster that substantially affects or increases the

need for health care workers. The bill specifies, however, that "unforeseeable

emergency" does not include a situation in which a health care facility has

inadequate staff due to chronic short staffing or other foreseeable causes.

A health care worker who is discharged or discriminated against for refusing

to work overtime or to be on on-call time in violation of the bill, for opposing a practice

prohibited under the bill, for filing a complaint or attempting to enforce a right

provided under the bill, or for testifying or assisting in any action or proceeding to

enforce such a right may file a complaint with the Department of Workforce

Development (DWD), and DWD must process the complaint in the same manner that

employment discrimination complaints are processed under current law, which

processing may include the ordering of back pay, reinstatement, costs, and attorney

fees. In addition, a health care facility that discharges or discriminates against a

health care worker in violation of the bill may be required to forfeit not more than

$1,000 for a first violation, not more than $5,000 for a violation committed within 12

months of a previous violation, and not more than $10,000 for a violation committed