Hours of health care facility employees—Mandatory overtime prohibited—Exceptions.
(1) No employee of a health care facility may be required to work overtime. Attempts to compel or force employees to work overtime are contrary to public policy, and any such requirement contained in a contract, agreement, or understanding is void.
(2) The acceptance by any employee of overtime is strictly voluntary, and the refusal of an employee to accept such overtime work is not grounds for discrimination, dismissal, discharge, or any other penalty, threat of reports for discipline, or employment decision adverse to the employee.
(3) This section does not apply to overtime work that occurs:
(a) Because of any unforeseeable emergent circumstance;
(b) Because of prescheduled on-call time, subject to the following:
(i) Mandatory prescheduled on-call time may not be used in lieu of scheduling employees to work regularly scheduled shifts when a staffing plan indicates the need for a scheduled shift;
(ii) Mandatory prescheduled on-call time may not be used to address regular changes in patient census or acuity or expected increases in the number of employees not reporting for predetermined scheduled shifts; and
(iii) Mandatory, prescheduled on-call time may not be used to begin at a time when the duration of the procedure is expected to exceed the employee's regular scheduled hours of work, except for the case of a nonemergent patient procedure for which, in the judgment of the provider responsible for the procedure, a delay would cause a worse clinical outcome;
(c) When the employer documents that the employer has used reasonable efforts to obtain staffing. An employer has not used reasonable efforts if overtime work is used to fill vacancies resulting from chronic staff shortages; or
(d) When an employee is required to work overtime to complete a patient care procedure already in progress where the absence of the employee could have an adverse effect on the patient.
(4) An employee accepting overtime who works more than twelve consecutive hours shall be provided the option to have at least eight consecutive hours of uninterrupted time off from work following the time worked.
NOTES:
Effective date—2023 c 114: See note following RCW 70.41.410.
Effective date—2019 c 296: See note following RCW 49.12.480.
Finding—2002 c 112: See note following RCW 49.28.130.