Must Shift Cancellation Be Fair and Equal?

Carolyn Buppert, NP, JD

Jan 02, 2013

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Question

Is a hospital required to have a written policy stating that cancellation of employees' shifts be administered on a fair and equal basis?

Response from Carolyn Buppert, NP, JD Attorney, Law Office of Carolyn Buppert P.C., Bethesda, Maryland

The short answer is "no." Although a hospital that repeatedly cancels shifts for its staff is going to risk losing staff to other employers, there is no legal prohibition on cancellation of shifts or any general legal requirements that shift cancellations be administered equally or fairly.
However, although a hospital administrator can make his or her own decision, for his or her own reasons, about whether to cancel the shift of Nurse A or Nurse B, the administrator can't use race, color, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information as a determining factor in making the decision to cancel a nurse's shifts. As stated on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Website ^[1]:

It is illegal for an employer to make decisions about job assignments and promotions based on an employee's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information. For example, an employer may not give preference to employees of a certain race when making shift assignments and may not segregate employees of a particular national origin from other employees or from customers.



An employer may not base assignment and promotion decisions on stereotypes and assumptions about a person's race, color, religion, sex (including pregnancy), national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information.

Hospitals must post a notice stating that employees are protected under federal law from discrimination on specified bases. A copy of the poster is available here. The poster tells individuals who to contact if they feel that their rights have been violated.
The EEOC wording doesn't mean that all nurses of a particular color or older nurses automatically get to keep their shifts. EEOC prohibits a pattern whereby the shifts of nurses of a certain race, age, religion, sex, or national origin are predictably cancelled or are never cancelled. If, in fact, there is such a pattern, then the nurses who are losing their shifts should report the hospital to the EEOC.

References

1. US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Prohibited employment policies/practices. http://www1.eeoc.gov//laws/practices/index.cfm?renderforprint=1 Accessed November 1, 2012.

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Cite this article: Must Shift Cancellation Be Fair and Equal?  Medscape. Jan 02, 2013.

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