Health Care: Court Says 12 Hour Shifts Can Pay Less Per Hour Than 8 Hour Shifts

The 9th Circuit has just ruled that a hospital that paid less per hour for each hour on a 12 hour shift than it paid per hour for an 8 hour shift was acting in a legal manner, since it paid the 12 hour shifts time and a half overtime for all hours over 8 in a shift.

In the early 1990’s, Pomona Valley Hospital was asked by its nurses to allow some of them to work 3 12 hours shifts per week instead of 5 8 hour shifts. The Hospital agreed to do it, but lowered the rate paid for each hour so that when a nurse worked a 12 hour shift, she was paid for 8 hours at straight time and 4 at time and a half for overtime, and ended up being paid the same for her 36 hours in a week as she would have been paid if she had worked the same 36 hours at all straight time as part of a 40 hour week. In other words, nurses who changed over to 3 12’s received the same pay for their 36 hours of work as they would have paid if they had worked the 36 under the old higher rate of pay during a 40 hour week.

The nurses agreed to this lower hourly rate, since they were paid no less for 36 hours after the change than they were paid before the change. Later, a Union organized the nurses, and agreed to this arrangement in its contract.

But then a nurse filed a class action, complaining that the Hospital lowered the hourly rate to evade the wage rate and overtime provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act. Not so, said the 9th Circuit --- the Court said that since the nurses did not lose any pay, and continued to get the same pay for 36 hours before and after, there was no violation of overtime laws. Parth v. Pomona Valley Hospital.