The Washington Nurses Association has filed class actions against four hospitals in Washington state, Evergreen Hospital Medical Center, Good Samaritan Hospital, Providence Holy Family Hospital, and Tacoma General Hospital, alleging that the hospitals failed to provide nurses with the meal and rest breaks required by state law and, in some cases, collective bargaining agreements. The lawsuits seek back pay and other damages on behalf of well over 1000 nurses.

Washington law provides that employees generally must receive at least two paid ten-minute breaks and one thirty-minute meal break during the course of an eight-hour day. Under state law, an employee need not be paid for a meal break if the employee is completely relieved of duty for 30 uninterrupted minutes. In addition, some hospitals have entered into collective bargaining agreements with the Washington Nurses Association, representing over 15,000 registered nurses, which provide for longer rest breaks or require that employees receive pay for meal breaks.

In the lawsuits, the union alleges that registered nurses regularly worked through their legally required meal and/or rest breaks and were not compensated for the missed rest breaks, or were not compensated for the time worked during meal periods. The complaints further assert that time worked during breaks, when added to the nurses' regular working time, often resulted in nurses working more than 40 hours in a given workweek, and that the nurses were not compensated for this alleged overtime. The lawsuit seeks back wages, including unpaid overtime, for time worked during meal and rest periods within the past three years.

As we have previously noted on this blog, class actions brought by private class action lawyers against hospitals for allegedly unpaid work during meal breaks have continued to snowball. It was only a matter of time before nurses unions would take a lesson from private plaintiffs' lawyers, bringing putative class actions against hospitals for failing to pay their members who allegedly worked during meal and rest periods.

Cases like these are also a reminder to hospitals and other healthcare employers to review their work-time and pay policies and procedures for compliance with state as well as federal law and applicable collective bargaining agreements. Many states, including California, Massachusetts, and others, have laws like Washington's law, requiring employees to receive rest and/or meal breaks. Employers must take care to comply with these laws and other wage and hour laws that are unique to each state and often differ from the requirements of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act.

This entry was written by Chris Kaczmarek.

Photo credit: skodonnell