Sacramento, Calif. Mandatory overtime remains controversial among nurses, partly because the Legislature hasn’t yet passed a law that would define how hospitals identify the type of emergency that would allow administrators to require overtime, said Tricia Hunter, legislative advocate for the American Nurses Association in California.

If a nurse is overworked as a result of hospitals using mandatory overtime as an alternative to appropriate staffing, it puts patients and nurses at risk, said Hope Hall, senior public relations specialist for the American Nurses Association.

"From a policy perspective, we as an industry don’t want to see nurses working when they’re overly tired. It’s a dilemma we have because the bottom line is we do what we have to do to take care of patients," said Jan Emerson, media relations director for the California Healthcare Association.

On June 30, the Industrial Welfare Commission, which handles California labor law, overturned for health care workers the ruling of four years that prohibits employees from working past eight hours as straight time, Emerson and Hunter said. The commission will allow 12-hour straight-time shifts for health care workers who have voted them in by secret ballot.

Glenda Canfield, RN, coordinator for the Service Employees International Union Nurse Alliance, said the allowance clearly doesn’t solve enough mandatory overtime problems for nurses, but it’s a start.

Nurses who vote by secret ballot to work 12-hour shifts as straight time cannot be forced to work more than four additional hours, for a total of 16, and they will be paid double time for those four hours, Canfield said.

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