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http://lsj.sagepub.com/ Mandatory Overtime Work in the United States: Who, Where, and What?
Lonnie Golden and Barbara Wiens-Tuers Labor Studies Journal 2005 30: 1 DOI: 10.1177/0160449X0503000102 The online version of this article can be found at: http://lsj.sagepub.com/content/30/1/1

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Mandatory Overtime Work in the United States:

Who, Where, and What?
Lonnie Golden and Barbara Wiens-Tuers Abstract

Who works mandatory overtime? Descriptive analysis of a module in the 2002 General Social Survey finds that 28 percent of full-timers face and 21 percent actually worked extra hours because it was required by their employer—a slight increase since overtime work was last measured

twenty-five years ago. Mandatory overtime is more frequent among men, the foreign born, those employed in non-profits, blue-collar occupations, and industries such as public administration and manufacturing. Relative to workers who have no overtime, workers who face mandatory overtime are found more frequently among workers who have inflexible work schedules, seniority, difficulty finding alternative jobs, bonus compensation, and poor relationships with management. Relative to those with non-mandatory overtime, those who work mandatory overtime show less job satisfaction, job security, and say about their jobs. Thus, understanding the effects of mandatory overtime has implications for organizations that aim for high-performance workplace
and smooth labor relations and for labor organizers who members by addressing the negative consequences of mandatory overtime, such as heightened work-family interference. While some collective bargaining provisions seek to curb mandatory overtime, their limited effect may be why at least seven U.S. states have passed some form of legal ban and/or right to refuse.
structures

seek

to attract

industries, at least some employers demand that their employees work overtime. If an employer calls for mandatory overtime (also called &dquo;compulsory&dquo; or &dquo;forced&dquo; overtime) employees who refuse to comply may face some penalty, disciplinary action, or other form of reprisal. Such responses may include suspension, demotion, assignments to unattractive tasks or shift
In all U.S.
JOURNAL, VOL 30, NO. 1 (SPRING 2005): 1-26. PUBLISHED FOR THE UNITED ASSOCIATION FOR LABOR EDUCATION BY THE WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, P.O. BOX 6295, WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY, MORGAN TOWN, WV 26506. © 2005, WEST VIRGINIA UNIVERSITY PRESS.
LABOR STUDIES

1
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times, reduced

access to

promotion, or even discharge. Employees who work

required significantly reduced abilities to balance work and family responsibilities (Berg et al. 2003; Institute for Workplace Studies 1999). Long hours have well documented adverse effects on worker health generally, via worker fatigue and stress (Spurgeon, Harrington, and Cooper 1997; Shields 1999; Fenwick and Tausig 2001; Van der Hulst 2003; Dong 2003; Board on Health Care Services and Institute of Medicine 2004), and on labor productivity (Shephard and Clifton 2000). These effects are exacerbated by workers lack of control over hours (Berg, Kalleberg, and Appelbaum 2003;
overtime hours have

Van der Hulst and Guerts 2001; Bliese and Halvorsen 1996). In occupations such as nursing, particularly in hospitals, heavy workloads and mandatory overtime are contributing to an occupational burnout rate of 40 percent, a rate that exceeds the norm for the health care industry (Aiken et al. 2002). Mandatory overtime work has important implications, but there is surprisingly little quantitative research about the current extent and distribution of mandatory overtime in the overall economy. The primary purpose of this paper is to use newly available data to establish the current patterns of mandatory overtime. The focus is on three specific questions: Who is working the mandatory overtime hours? Where is it happening? UUhat are some workplace and employer characteristics and outcomes that are associated with mandatory overtime? To answer these questions we must isolate the demographic characteristics of workers with mandatory overtime and determine what industries and occupations are calling for mandatory overtime. This research uses the 2002 General Social Survey (GSS), a nationally representative interview survey of U.S. households. The Quality of Working Life module of the 2002 GSS sampled 2,765 individuals, asking detailed questions about overtime work hours, including whether the employer required overtime work. To provide a context, the first section of the paper reviews the relatively scarce research literature concerning mandatory and involuntary long hours of work. The second section of the paper introduces the data set and discusses the descriptive statistics about who is working mandatory overtime, where mandatory overtime is concentrated, and what jobs, workplace and employer characteristics, and outcomes are associated with mandatory overtime. The paper concludes with the key results of the statistical analyses and a brief discussion of their implications for future research and collective bargaining.

Literature Review: Patterns of Mandatory Overtime Work The last comprehensive measurement of mandatory overtime occurred Quality of Employment Survey (QES). About 44 percent of respondents reported that overtime work was &dquo;mostly up to their employer&dquo; (higher
in the 1977

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than the 36 percent observed in 1973 QES). Queried if they &dquo;...could refuse to work overtime, if asked to work it, without being penalized in any way,&dquo; about 19 percent reported that they would suffer a penalty, and about 44 percent indicated that they would &dquo;suffer no penalty&dquo; (Quinn and Staines 1979). Workers whose overtime work was up to their employer and who would suffer a penalty if they refused were considered to be facing mandatory overtime. This amounted to 16 percent of workers in 1977 (Quinn and Staines 1979; Ehrenberg and Schumann 1984). Using the entire QES sample, the merged 1974-77 panels (for a sample size of 621 men), we found that 21 percent of men were subject to mandatory overtime. Workers in blue collar positions had a greater likelihood of facing mandatory overtime, as did workers who had medical or pension plans, while unionized workers had a lower likelihood (Idson and Robbins 1991). Given the rise in average weekly overtime hours in the manufacturing sector-the only sector for which overtime is directly measured (Hetrick 2000)- one might reasonably hypothesize that the incidence of mandatory overtime has also risen commensurately since the 1970s (Smith 1996). Other recent surveys suggest that working overtime due to employer or supervisory pressure affects about one in every five or six workers. A survey in 1999 of 4,278 unionized hourly workers concentrated mainly in the Northeast included six industries, primarily construction (craft workers), manufacturing (auto workers), and services (emergency medical technicians, mail handlers, and workers in utilities, transportation, nursing homes, and retail) (Institute for Workplace Studies, Cornell University 1999). About 60 percent of respon, dents had worked some overtime in the previous month before the survey was taken. The average additional hours worked per week was over 6.6 hours (on workers primary jobs). However, a third of these workers put in eleven or more hours of overtime per week. The survey included specific questions regarding overtime work, attempting to distinguish the various reasons that these workers worked overtime. About a third of those who worked overtime reported being compelled to do so through &dquo;supervisory pressure.&dquo; Thus, about 18 percent of all workers in the sample worked more overtime hours than they would have preferred. Workers employed in the transportation and emergency health services faced more employer pressure than workers in construction, retail, and auto manufacturing. Day shift employees generally logged an average of five extra hours a week while those on later shifts put in more, an average of nine extra hours. The Work in America Institute (WIA) surveyed union and nonunion workers in 2002, and included a question that allowed three distinct responses : &dquo;Currently,...do you have no overtime (work), voluntary overtime

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(opportunities that can be refused without penalties), or mandatory overtime?&dquo; (see Friedman and Casner-Lotto 2003). Among the union workers, 19 percent indicated working mandatory overtime, while among nonunion workers it was 15 percent. In addition, those with mandatory overtime were asked: &dquo;Is your mandatory overtime usually scheduled far enough in advance that you are able to plan for it, or is it usually scheduled at the last minute and hard to plan for?&dquo; Over 55 percent indicated that mandatory overtime was scheduled
at the last minute (53 percent of union and 56 percent of nonunion workers). This is consistent with a survey that found 45 percent of workers reported having to work overtime with little or no notice (John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development 1999). The nature of work practices in the organization may also influence the degree to which overtime work is required. Generally, workers with more autonomy in their jobs and more extensive communication with other employees report working less required overtime (Berg and Kalleberg 2002). However, while job autonomy reduces required overtime in the apparel and medical electronics industries, it does not do so significantly in the steel industry. Moreover, workers who are part of an offline, problem-solving team are more likely to work required overtime in the apparel and medical electronics industries. Workers who reported that they were required to work overtime involuntarily and who perceived that they have too much work to do, were less likely to trust their managers (Kalleberg and Berg 2002). In the health sector, nurses appear to be most visible group subject to mandatory overtime, being required to stay at work for an additional shift (either partial or full), especially in round-the-clock operations such as hospitals. They are at best only partly compensated for the inconvenience of the long working hours (Holmas 2002). In the U.S., various surveys have been conducted to gauge the frequency and risks associated with mandatory overtime in the health care industry. About one quarter of nurses worked mandatory overtime once or twice a month. Another quarter worked it once or twice a week, and 14 percent worked it every day. The issue has come to the fore of public policy because the combination of fatigue from long hours and high patient load can result in inadequate compliance with procedures, less monitoring of patients, and serious mistakes, particularly among medical residents (Boodman 2001). Nevertheless, 43 percent of hospitals continue a policy of mandatory overtime practices (American Association of Critical Care Nurses 2000). Another survey of health care workers, mainly nurses (female), found that about half (49 percent) of all respondents who worked overtime did so because at least some of the overtime was mandated. In 2001, 75 percent of nurses regularly worked overtime and nearly half of those hours

&dquo;

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5
were

mandatory.2 In 2002, a survey found that 61 percent of nurses said they had observed increases in overtime or double shifts during the past year. In the American Nurses Association Health and Safety Survey, 67 percent of respondents stated they worked some type of mandatory or unplanned over3 time every month (Steinbrook 2002).3 In Pennsylvania, a large survey of several thousand registered nurses renewing their licenses in 2002 and 2003, reported that about 13 percent of nurses worked mandatory overtime in the two weeks prior to taking the survey.4 Interestingly, another third of respondents indicated that they worked overtime &dquo;involuntarily,&dquo; in the sense that they felt they had no choice but to stay even though it was not strictly mandated, amounting to an average of 5.4 hours of such overtime per week. In addition, almost 10 percent of the nurses reported working full-time workweeks despite being classified as parttime. No more than 58 percent of nurses had &dquo;ever refused overtime.&dquo; About 28 percent of those that had refused overtime had been threatened with or suffered disciplinary action. Among those who had refused it, 35 percent had been threatened with or accused of &dquo;patient abandonment,&dquo; which is grounds for losing their license to practice. In sum, it appears that after twenty-five years, mandatory overtime is, at best, no less prevalent, even among unionized workers. The risk of required overtime work may be even more pervasive than the surveys indicate, since they are only a snapshot at a given point, although many workers may be pressured to work overtime only periodically, e.g., seasonally. Thus, employ~ ees with certain job characteristics are expected to be more exposed, such as those with less autonomy, discretion, or leverage to refuse an undesirable condition of work.
Who, Where, and What? Data and methodology
What do we currently know about the people working mandatory overtime ? As noted in the literature review, mandatory overtime was rarely measured directly until recently. This section of the paper uses the 2002 General Social Survey (GSS) Quality of Working Life module to answer questions about who works mandatory overtime, where mandatory overtime is concentrated, what types of jobs are involved, and what outcomes appear to be associated with mandatory overtime. The GSS is conducted by the National Opinion Research Center and funded by the National Science Foundation. The GSS concept emerged from the Social Indicator movement to promote the use of social science to monitor social trends relevant to public policy. It has been

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conducted annually since 1972 (except for the years 1979, 1981, and 1992) and biennially beginning in 1994. Each survey changes slightly as some items are added or deleted. Main areas covered in the GSS include socioeconomic status, social mobility, social control, family demographics, race relations, sex relations, civil liberties, and morality. Topical modules designed to investigate new issues or to expand the coverage of an existing subject have been part of the GSS since 1977. ~ The GSS conducted in 2002 is a unique resource for researchers interested in issues associated with mandatory overtime. The sample size for the Quality of Work Life module is 2,765 participants. The GSS uses full probability sample design, which gives each household equal probability of being included in the survey. The specific GSS survey question for mandatory overtime is, &dquo;When you work overtime, is it mandatory (required by your employer)?&dquo; To this question, &dquo;How many days in a month during the last year did you work beyond your usual schedule?&dquo; some workers responded that they worked extra hours one or more days a month and that their over, time was mandatory. Those workers were then separated from workers who answered that their overtime was not mandatory, and from workers who had no overtime at all. Given the lack of recent relevant data, this paper focuses on descriptive analyses. The statistical analysis is performed using Stata 7 (2001). Tests of the statistical significance of the difference are performed for comparisons of the means and proportions between two sample groups. For example, in the two sample comparison of proportions PI and p,, the null hypothesis is PI P2 The null hypothesis is tested at either a 0.10 or 0.05 level of significance.6 Significance tests are performed on the means between workers who report both working overtime and that overtime is mandatory vis-d-vis workers whose overtime is not mandatory. Data is also reported for workers with no overtime and for all employed workers, to provide a context for the data.
=

Who?

employed people in the survey, 461 people answered mandatory, and 1,293 people answered &dquo;no.&dquo; That means 26 percent of all employed and 28 percent of all full-time workers regarded overtime work as mandatory. Over 75 percent of workers with mandatory overtime worked extra hours over the last month before the survey compared to 57 percent of workers who did not face mandatory overtime. Of those employed, 19.4 percent reported that overtime was both mandatory and that they worked beyond their usual schedules in a month during the previous year (see Table 1). Mandatory overtime increases average hours of work by

Of the 1,796
overtime is

&dquo;yes,&dquo;

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7 almost 10 hours per month. Table 2 compares the

demographic characteristics

of workers whose

overtime was mandatory to workers with overtime that was not mandatory. Among workers with mandatory overtime, 57.0 percent are male and 43.0 percent are female compared to workers with overtime that was not mandatory

where 51.0 percent

are

female. These differences statistically significant. statistically significant differences include distribution by race (whites work less mandatory overtime), by education (having less than a high school education increases the incidence of mandatory overtime, while having a graduate degree decreases the incidence), and by birth (being foreign born and residing outside a SMSA both significantly raise the prospect of mandatory overtime). Finally, mandatory overtime appears to be associated with lower family income. However, overtime work generally, whether mandatory or voluntary, raises income. Marital status has no statistically significant effect.
are

male and 49.0 percent

Other

are

Where?

Looking next at the employment characteristics, Table 3 illustrates the incidence and distribution of mandatory extra hours and non-mandatory extra hours by industry classification. Overall distribution of workers with extra hours that they considered mandatory shows they are concentrated in professional services (24.3 percent), retail trade (12.6 percent), transportation and communications (9.9 percent), and public administration (9.9 percent). Among the non-agricultural and mining sectors, the incidence of mandatory overtime is well above the overall incidence of 19 percent for all employed. Mandatory overtime in public administration is 27 percent; in nondurable manufacturing it is 25 percent, and in transportation, communications and public utilities it is 23 percent. The incidence and distribution of mandatory and non-mandatory overtime by occupational categories in Table 4 show that the highest incidence of mandatory overtime include farming and fishing at 31 percent of workers, precision-production at 27 percent, mechanics and repairers at 25 percent, and laborers at 24 percent. Turning finally to the distribution of overtime by occupation, the largest number of workers with mandatory extra hours are in executive and administrative occupations (17.0 percent), service occupations (15.8 percent), and professional specialties (15.5 percent).
What kind of jobs and what kind of workplace?

Another facet of employment is the presence of high performance work systems. High performance work systems may be broadly divided between
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8 management practices that focus on a workers attitude and commitment as an indirect link to job performance, and a management system that directly
targets performance through formalization of pay-for-performance links (Wood 1999). High commitment practices by employers are designed to affect em-

ployee attachment to the job and company, and thereby improve efficiency. This is achieved by empowering workers to participate in decision making, persuading them to willingly change and move between jobs, teaching them to be quality conscious, and linking compensation to organizational performance (Wood 1999; Kalleberg 2003; White et al. 2003). These are called &dquo;high road&dquo; practices (Appelbaum and Batt 1994; Osterman 2000). Management systems that focus directly on individual performance incentives and merit pay and are often associated with management control of goals in the production process (Wood 1999) and the &dquo;lean, mean corporate machine.&dquo; Practices associated with the high commitment model, designed to foster employee attachment and effort, appear in several questions in the GSS. These practices include having flexible daily schedules, having a say about what happens on the job, working as part of a team, and participating with others in setting the way things are done on the job. Measures of merit pay and incentives include being eligible for performance-based pay, owning stock in the company, and having chances for promotion. Finally, one GSS question asks about the relationship between management and employees. Table 5 presents some of the other selected job and employment characteristics that are associated with mandatory overtime workers as compared to non-mandatory overtime workers. Having an inflexible schedule and less say about ones job is associated with more required overtime compared to workers with only voluntary overtime, and the difference is statistically significant. Only 46.5 percent of mandatory overtime workers reported they &dquo;often&dquo; or &dquo;sometimes&dquo; had flexible starting and quitting times as compared with over 61 percent among those working non-mandatory overtime. Mandatory overtime workers are also less likely to participate with others in setting the way the job is done, but this difference is not statistically significant. The incidence of performance-based pay and stock ownership differs little between mandatory and non-mandatory overtime workers. Furthermore, both types of overtime have a much higher incidence of performance-based pay and stock ownership compared to workers with no overtime. However, workers with mandatory overtime feel less secure about their jobs and do not characterize their relationship with management as good or very good relative to those workers with non-mandatory overtime, and this is statistically significant. Only 64 percent of mandatory overtime workers reported &dquo;very good&dquo; or &dquo;quite good&dquo; relations with management compared to 73 percent
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9
of non-mandatory overtime workers. Mandatory overtime workers report a higher incidence of working as part of a team and less confidence in being promoted than non-mandatory overtime workers, but these differences are

statistically significant. Among other job characteristics, relative to those who do not work extra hours, those who are required to work overtime are more senior workers as opposed to new hires, a statistically significant difference. The ranks of those who report being required to work overtime are disproportionately paid by salary rather than wages, relative to those who work no overtime at all, and this is statistically significant. Belonging to a labor union is associated with a statistically insignificant higher incidence of required overtime working relative to non-overtime workers. In addition, those who work required rather than non-mandatory overtime indicate greater difficulty finding a comparable, alternative job, and this is a significant difference. Finally, job satisfaction is highest among workers with non-required overtime and lowest for mandatory overtime workers, relative to all others, and the difference here is statistically significant.
not

Associated outcomes?

Before leaving the descriptive statistics, the other &dquo;what&dquo; that is important to consider is the impact of mandatory overtime on workers themselves, illustrated in Table 7. Mandatory overtime is clearly associated with work-family conflict. Workers with mandatory overtime report a higher incidence of work interfering with family life, and report often coming home from work too tired to do chores. Interestingly, mandatory overtime does not measurably reduce the feeling that work is central to ones life; indeed, if anything, mandatory overtime might enhance that feeling (see Snir and Harpaz 2002). On the other hand, 16.4 percent of mandatory overtime workers claimed they were harassed or threatened at work compared to 10.8 percent of non-mandatory overtime workers, and this difference is statistically significant. Those who reported mandatory overtime reported feeling relatively more prone to ill health, but the differences are not significant.

Summary of Findings and Implications for Future Research

This paper used the Quality of Work Life module in the General Social Survey (GSS) of 2002 to examine the incidence and characteristics of mandatory overtime. About 26 percent of those surveyed face the prospect of mandatory overtime, that is, work required by their employer instead of on their own volition. Among full-time employed, the proportion is about 28 percent. Thus, it appears that mandatory overtime is noticeably more present

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10

than it was twenty-five years ago, the last time it was comprehensively measured by a survey. The general level of mandatory overtime work as revealed by the GSS 2002 Quality of Working Life module is not inconsistent with, although slightly higher, than other recent surveys that disproportionately sampled unionized workers. Mandatory overtime workers are disproportionately male and somewhat more frequently foreign-born and non-urban residents. Certain occupations such as transportation, precision production (non-construction), farming, fishing, and machine operation, as well as certain industries such as mining, agriculture, nondurables manufacturing, and public administration, have a higher incidence of required overtime. Required overtime is nearly as frequent among salaried as hourly wage earners. There is a higher incidence of mandatory overtime (compared to no overtime) when there are compensation incentives present such as stock ownership and performance-based pay. Perhaps surprisingly, it is relatively higher among those whose job tenure is greater than one year and those who participate in workplace decision-making (again, compared to no overtime). Not surprisingly, mandatory overtime is much less common than non-mandatory overtime among those with flexible daily work scheduling. Other job factors associated with mandatory versus non-mandatory overtime include having little say in job content and more frequent overtime. Further empirical results show that perceived difficulty in finding another job and poor labor-management relations are also higher among mandatory overtime workers. Required overtime appears to be exacerbated by workplace participation with management and co-workers, although not significantly with use of teams in decision-making. Mandatory overtime is, at first glance, enhanced by unionization. However, this may be due primarily to the occupations and industries involved (for the same reason it is more prominent among men). The low proportions of mandatory overtime workers who work on the day shift is consistent with previous surveys finding that irregular or night shift workers are more prone to facing required additional hours due to employer pressure, including high-profile groups such as nurses. Mandatory overtime is clearly associated with negative outcomes, such as work-family conflict, poorer quality of work climate, including harassment and poorer labor-management relations, as suggested in previous case studies. However, mandatory overtime does not measurably reduce job satisfaction or the feeling that work is central to ones life, relative to working no extra hours, perhaps because mandatory overtime work yields greater monetary rewards as indicated by individual income categories. However, this gain creates only slightly higher family income relative to others who do not work mandatory overtime. The descriptive findings yield directions for further empirical re-

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11

search that

might more definitively determine the lines of causality between mandatory overtime work, its demographic composition, various working conditions, and unionization. This would reveal why mandatory overtime has risen somewhat over time, and disproportionately burdens certain workers more than others when controlling for other influences.
Implications for Unions,
Aside from
auto

Collective
recent,

Bargaining,

and

Policy

important, high-profile cases of strikes in the industry, telecommunications, and hospital nursing sectors, collective
some

bargaining has largely neglected the issue of mandatory overtime. Indeed, a total of less than 10 percent of recently negotiated first contracts tackle the issue (Juravich and Bronfenbrenner 2005)-some via limits and some via an agreed right to refuse. Perhaps this is because unions expend any bargaining leverage they might have on higher priorities for certain members such as protecting compensation levels and jobs. Table 8 summarizes some recent cases of contract language that either limits the use and extent of mandatory overtime hours, or grants employees some right to refuse or to advance
notification. Labor organizers might use the outcome that mandatory overtime work tends to be associated with work-family interference by prioritizing the issue when recruiting younger workers with families, not only in health care but in the other industries and occupations where it is prevalent. Moreover, because mandatory overtime tends to be associated with certain workplace conditions such as participation with co-workers, some seniority, and inflexible work schedules, and also with rewards such as performance-based pay, labor negotiators might be able to relieve pressures that lead to mandatory overtime by bargaining for more worker-friendly conditions. The documented inability of unionization or collective bargaining alone to curb the escalation of mandatory overtime means advocates of its restraint must turn to stronger measures to deter its use. Seven U.S. states currently have passed legal bans and/or right to refuse, and at least another twenty states have pending proposals. Also, pending congressional legislation, the Safe Nursing and Patient Act (S. 373 and H.R. 745) would limit the number of mandatory overtime hours a licensed practical or registered nurse may be required to work in the Medicare program, and limit even voluntary hours to no more than twelve hours in a twenty-four-hour period and/or eighty hours in a consecutive fourteen-day period. All legislation that has passed and that has been signed into law so far, in all states except Maine, comprise regulations intended for the health related fields only (see Golden and Jorgensen 2002). However, federal legislation may be more effective than in prior years

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12

given the recent upsurge

no more

in interest in

enforcing FLSA overtime regulations

(McCain 2002). Nevertheless, the U.S. Department of Labor estimates that

40 percent of all employers fully comply with the FLSA regulations. Moreover, many workers are currently exempt from the overtime
than 20
to

pay regulations-not only employees with sufficient administrative,

managerial,

and professional duties, but also agricultural workers and over-the-road truck drivers, the latter covered only by the Hours of Service regulations that have been modified to permit up to eleven hours of daily driving time. Thus, perhaps even stronger medicine may be warranted. This might include exercising the right to refuse unsafe work under OSHA laws. Taken to the global scale, this would involve granting all workers the right to refuse overtime work without suffering the severe penalty of job loss, as an extension of the global prohibition of forced or compulsory labor, in line with the International Labor Organization convention. However, such measures might first be applied selectively, rather than too broadly, to protect those workers who are most affected and harmed by mandatory overtime, such as foreignborn workers, with parental responsibilities, who work in those industries or occupations that overburden employees with mandatory overtime.
Notes 1
2

Nursing, 2000.
Federation of Nurses and Health Professionals/AFT Mandatory Overtime Also American Organization of Nurse Leaders Survey

Pennsylvania Department of Health Nurse Survey, August 4, 2003, http:// www.dsf.health.state.pa.us/h...STION_ID=235402 (Accessed August 14,
2004).
See Intrauniversity Consortium on Policy and Survey Research, General Social

Survey. http.//webapp.icpsr.umich.edu/cocoon/ICPSR-SERIES/00028.xml (Accessed May 27, 2004). See Stata Reference Manual, Release 7: Volume 2, pp 595-598 (2001), for more
used in this paper when comparing two groups. Sources: MassNurse News (2000), Labor Project for Working Families
on

information

the

tests

(2001).
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__,

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on

__,

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on

in

an

age

employee welfare.

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Quinn, Robert and Graham Staines. 1979. The 1977 Quality of Employment Survey. Survey Research Center, Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. Ann Arbor, MI. Shepard, Edward, and Thomas Clifton. 2000. Are longer hours reducing productivity in manufacturing? International Journal of Manpower 21, no. 7:540-53. Shields, Margot. 1999. Long working hours and health. Health Reports 11 :2248.

Smith, Michael. 1996. Mandatory overtime and quality of life in the 1990s. Journal of Corporation Law 21, no. 3:599-622 Snir, Raphael, and Itzhak Harpaz. 2002. Work-leisure relations: Leisure orientation and the meaning of work. Journal of Leisure Research 34:178-202. Spurgeon, Anne, J.M. Harrington, and Cary Cooper. 1997. Health and safety prob-

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15

long working hours: A review of the current position. Occupational Environment Medicine 54:367-75. Steinbrook, Robert. 2002. Nursing in the crossfire. New England Journal of Medicine 346, no. 22 (May 30): 1757-1766. Van der Hulst, Monique. 2003. Long work hours and health, Scandinavian Journal of Work Environment Health 29, no. 3: 171-88.
—,

lems associated with

and Sabine Geurts. 2001. Associations between overtime and psychological health in high and low reward jobs. Work Stress 15, no. 3:227-240.

White, Michael, Stephen Hill, Patrick McGovern, Colin Mills and Deborah
Smeaton. 2003. "High-performance" management practices, working hours and work-life balance. British Journal of Industrial Relations 41, no. 2 (June): 175-95.

Wood, Stephen. 1999. Getting the measure of the transformed high performance organization. British Journal of Industrial Relations 37, no. 3 (September):
391-417.

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16

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24
Table 8 Innovative Collective Bargaining Provisions

regarding Mandatory Overtime

Hospitals and Health Services

Tenet Health Care and St. Vincents Hospital with MA Nurses Association, in Worcester, MA: hospital is allowed to assign up to two hours of mandatory overtime, but no more than for a four-hour period twice every three months. A nurse could work an additional 2 hours if s/he felt it safe. Staten Island University Hospital contract with the NYSNA: staff nurses who are required to work three or more hours of unscheduled overtime will receive double pay. If it happens again during a calendar month, theyll receive 2-1/2 times their usual pay. If the hospital uses 360 hours of overtime within a three-month period, it must create another full-time nurse position. Lima (Ohio) Hospital and United American Nurses: &dquo;there will be no mandatory overtime.&dquo; Aliquippa Community Hospital and District 1199P of the Service Employees International Union: &dquo;the Hospital shall not require employees to work mandatory overtime. In the event that overtime work is required, the hospital shall offer shifts or hours of work on a voluntary basis...&dquo;

Telecommunications
Verizon and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) cut &dquo;caps&dquo; on mandatory half, from 15 to 7.5 hours a week (which includes voluntary overtime). At least 2.5 hours advance union notification if overtime work is required. Consideration must be given to those employees requesting to be excused from overtime. BellSouth call centers are required to solicit and keep on record for each employees preference for
overtime down by overtime

assignment.
Airlines

Northwest Airlines permits employees to refuse overtime if they provide reasons such as child care responsibilities that cannot be altered on short notice. At United Air Lines, International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers &dquo;will not be required to work overtime against their wishes.&dquo;
&dquo;

Postal Services
The American Postal Workers Union (APWU) and National Association of Letter Carriers (NALC) agreed with the United States Postal Service to protect members who sign up on a list of &dquo;overtime desired&dquo; but only want to work limited overtime, plus those who
are not on

the list.

Manufacturing
United Steelworkers agreements with FMC, a pesticide plant, the Fording Coal Ltd., and Highland Valley Copper, overtime shall be on a voluntary basis only. The International Association of Machinists (IAM) contract with Boeing has quarterly limits on overtime to only two consecutive weekends, limited to eight hours per day.

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25
Table 8 (continued) Innovative Collective Bargaining Provisions regarding Mandatory Overtime
Food and Retail
United Food and Commercial Workers agreements with International Mitchells GourFoods Ind. stipulated that overtime work shall be kept to a minimum...and that no employee shall be compelled to work overtime or shall be discriminated against for refusal to work overtime. At Certified Grocers of CA, the Teamsters employees shall be given the opportunity to elect whether they wish to decline overtime work after eight (8) hours or the sixth (6th) or seventh (7th) day for the succeeding twelve-month period, with the limitation that this involve no more than 25% of the employees (Bigler 2002; AFL-CIO Safety and Health Department 2002).
met

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