Friday, May 15, 1998
Nurses fear effects of sick-time policy
NURSES:
Medical center officials say system will prevent employees from
abusing paid leave
By Kathryn Combs
Daily Bruin Staff
Nurses at the UCLA and Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Centers are
concerned that recent changes in the attendance policy will punish
them for necessary absences.
While the previous attendance policy was based on the frequency
of illness, new policies are based on the number of missed hours
and refer strictly to leaves of absence that are not
pre-approved.
While employees and union officials argue this policy could
limit the rights of employees to their accrued sick hours, medical
center officials contend this system will help to avoid abuse of
sick time and will result in consistent patient care.
"I don’t like it at all," said Michael Leptuch, who has been a
nurse with UCLA for 10 years.
"Lucky for me I don’t take much sick time, so it doesn’t really
affect me," he said.
"But I don’t like the fact that if I do get sick I have to start
jumping through hoops," he added.
However, Susan Johnson, the clinical director of nursing for
UCLA, says that the new policy will not affect those who don’t
abuse the system.
"We didn’t want one unit to have a set of standards that were
more or less strict," Johnson said.
"(And) we wanted all nurses to be evaluated with the same set of
criteria," she said.
"The only time that (this policy) would really impact the nurses
in terms of overall performance would be if they used more than the
accrued time," she added.
However, Elizabeth Campos, labor representative for the
California Nurses Association (CNA), believes the university is
trying to penalize employees for using sick time they have a right
to.
"I know for a fact that not all supervisors or departments are
enforcing it. But since the new attendance standards have come out,
they are being pressured by the administration to enforce," Campos
said.
"We have a contract that gives the employees the right to accrue
sick time, and it also gives them the right to use it."
"We’re fine with a policy that monitors sick time use … but
they are not monitoring it, they are restricting it," she
added.
Although the number of hours nurses accumulate vary from unit to
unit, it is also based on whether or not they work full or part
time.
For example, full-time nurses at UCLA accrue eight hours of sick
time per one month worked. This translates into 24 hours every four
months. At the UCLA-Santa Monica Medical Center full time nurses
accrue 16 hours per quarter.
"They are entitled to use the maximum of what they accrue by
contract," Johnson said
However, concern remains among employees that this is not enough
sick time to recover, even from temporary illnesses.
"No one can predict how and when they are going to be sick,
especially in a hospital," said Lynne Bacon, a nurse with the Santa
Monica-UCLA Medical Center.
"The policy essentially encourages people to come to work ill or
it means that they are going to just have to give up any
possibility of their having the merit increase that they really
deserve," she said.
Each year, many university employees such as nurses receive a
pay raise based on their annual performance.
"Many nurses are single parents, (and) they really can not
afford anything that would cost them their increase," she said.
Employees, including Bacon, argue this new policy will rob many
of this merit increase because they will be penalized for using up
their sick time.
"There’s some misunderstanding of the intent of this attendance
standard," Johnson said.
"We need to work on explaining on why it came to be. There is no
mystery and no hidden agenda," she said.
Heidi Crooks, the associate director of patient care services at
UCLA, agreed with Johnson.
"We are trying to make individual’s accountable for short term
illnesses which do indeed occur," Crooks said. "We do not want them
to come in sick."
"(However) the system we had in the past, the units decided
themselves, and with some units absenteeism was an issue," Crooks
said.
Deborah Pasch, the associate director of patient care at the
Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center, asserts this policy will
facilitate communication between employees and their managers.
"It’s both a guideline for employees to know what is expected as
well as a guideline for the management so that there is a
consistent tool for managers to use," she said.
University officials, however, assert that this attendance
policy is a pilot program, started in October 1997. According to
Crooks, the university will soon be seeking feedback from the
employees.
However, judging from what some of the employees have said, the
policy may not get rave reviews.
"Nurses who may really be sick may not be getting themselves
treated the way they should because they are afraid of retaliation
by the university," Leptuch said.
Some employees also believe this is a way to avoid giving nurses
deserved pay raises.
"It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out this is
another way to cut costs and to avoid paying the nurse’s raise,"
Bacon said.