Mandatory overtime hours and on-call time worked by health care workers and providing penalties

What it would have done

Summary by the Legislative Reference Bureau, the Legislature's nonpartisan drafting office. It's their wording, not ours.

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.

Who's behind it

22 representatives are its authors⁠. 21 are Democrats and 1 is a Republican.

10 more lawmakers signed on in support⁠.

What it would cost

State agencies filed a cost estimate. Each opens as a PDF from the Legislature.

• Fiscal Estimate From DHS
• Fiscal Estimate From DOC
• Fiscal Estimate From DWD
• Fiscal Estimate From ERC
• Fiscal Estimate From OSER