Minnesota

Minnesota

Union Rules

When the Minnesota NBS program first decided to expand laboratory operating hours to Saturday, they contacted the union for clearance. If a staff member did not agree to an expanded or revised work schedule, they could not be forced to comply, since this was not listed in their job duties when they were hired. Now that weekend and holiday rotations are part of the lab and follow-up job descriptions, there are no union
concerns.

To comply with union rules, laboratory staff are required to time balance the Saturday within the two-week pay period. To meet this requirement, the program reclassified lab staff from Environmental Analyst I (eligible for overtime) to Environmental Analyst II (not eligible), so that all staff would get straight time instead of time and a half. This reclassification made it easier to balance flex time.

For holidays, staff receives an additional eight hours of vacation time in addition to being paid for the holiday. Union negotiations for follow-up staff occurred on an agency level, since other laboratory sections, such as infectious disease, also need on-call staff. Unlike the newborn screening lab, the union agreement for the follow-up section specifies an Officer of the Day Code whereby any staff member required to be on-call receives a flat rate for the week plus a negotiated rate for any phone calls received or results called out.

Scheduling

When the Minnesota newborn screening program expanded to Saturday operations, they hired additional staff to work a Tuesday through Saturday schedule. Current employees remained on a regular Monday through Friday schedule. This created a division among staff, with the Monday-Friday team perceived by staff as having more seniority. If any problems occurred on a Saturday, the new staff often had to contact more senior staff for troubleshooting assistance. Mondays are usually high volume days but this scheduling caused the lab to be short-staffed due to the block scheduling.

After four years of the Tuesday-Saturday shift, the newborn screening program decided to have all staff work a Monday-Friday shift with a Saturday rotation once every two months and a rotation of 1-2 holidays per year. As an incentive, staff working Saturday receive a flex day (or time-balance) that must be used within the two-week pay period. On holidays, staff receives an additional eight hours of vacation time.

On-call rotations for follow up staff have always been part of the job description since the inception of expanded program hours. Four follow-up staff rotate the call schedule and one person is on-call one week each month. In addition to paying and/or comp time for being on-call for the week, the availability of remote technology (VPN) to access the Laboratory Information Management System (LIMS), Wi-Fi hotspot on agency cell phones, and to electronically fax results increased buy-in for follow-up staff, as it caused less disruption during evenings and weekends. Similarly, for lab staff, the ability to log into the instruments and update LIMS remotely made working Saturdays or holidays less of a burden because senior staff can remote access test results when lab staff is done with a shift.

Supervisors of both lab and follow-up are expected to work on weekends and holidays, which improves staff morale by showing that everyone, not only less experienced staff, is working weekends/holidays to save babies. Also, with flexible scheduling, staff are often willing to cover one another’s evening/weekend/holiday shift.