Yep, IW, it do answer my questions. Those are good points. Thanks! They make sense, and that alone would kill those ideas in Ohio DRC.

Hi Mudflap… I saw the push to outlaw mandating as an effort by the union trying to force the state to staff appropriately. Let’s face it….everybody….McDonalds, WalMart, and the State of Illinois, Department of Corrections, is understaffed. The Illinois Department of Corrections is GROSSLY understaffed, and I think the union was trying to fix that. Like I said, it was a failed effort, but it was honorable. In fact, it actually got a lot of press coverage….but in the end, it failed. My opinion….take the posts that are labeled “mandatory, as needed” (yes, that is a real phrase in IDOC…somebody PLEASE define mandatory for me!!!), man those posts, and take from THOSE posts for med writs, call offs, etc instead of unmanning those posts from the start…IDOC could do away with mandatory overtime. And yes, we have THAT MANY “mandatory, as needed” posts. If that were corrected, that would only leave a blizzard as a way to mandate…go ahead, legislators, I’m on your side. Make that exception.
That is the problem in IDOC. They have reduced staff to critical levels DAILY, relying on THEIR AUTHORITY alone to cover emergency situations. How’s about they make overtime attractive?……..Make it desirable to the ones that want it. I should not belly-ache. I have never in my 8 1/2 years been mandated, but it is purely luck of the draw. At times, there have been dozens of mandates a week, but I have just been in the top 1/3. Does that answer your ?’s??

Hi Mudflap… I saw the push to outlaw mandating as an effort by the union trying to force the state to staff appropriately. Let’s face it….everybody….McDonalds, WalMart, and the State of Illinois, Department of Corrections, is understaffed. The Illinois Department of Corrections is GROSSLY understaffed, and I think the union was trying to fix that. Like I said, it was a failed effort, but it was honorable. In fact, it actually got a lot of press coverage….but in the end, it failed. My opinion….take the posts that are labeled “mandatory, as needed” (yes, that is a real phrase in IDOC…somebody PLEASE define mandatory for me!!!), man those posts, and take from THOSE posts for med writs, call offs, etc instead of unmanning those posts from the start…IDOC could do away with mandatory overtime. And yes, we have THAT MANY “mandatory, as needed” posts. If that were corrected, that would only leave a blizzard as a way to mandate…go ahead, legislators, I’m on your side. Make that exception.
That is the problem in IDOC. They have reduced staff to critical levels DAILY, relying on THEIR AUTHORITY alone to cover emergency situations. How’s about they make overtime attractive?……..Make it desirable to the ones that want it. I should not belly-ache. I have never in my 8 1/2 years been mandated, but it is purely luck of the draw. At times, there have been dozens of mandates a week, but I have just been in the top 1/3. Does that answer your ?’s??

Hey IW. I can’t see how in the world the state could do away with mandatory OT. How did they plan to cover a shift without it? I don’t like mandatory OT but think it’s an unavoidable evil.

Our OT rules have been flopping around the past couple of years. Not too long ago they were mandating the bottom of the pile night after night after night, and then started using a bottom half system similar to what you described with the bottom 2/3. A lot of us who are in the bottom half of the seniority list didn’t like that system because nobody could figure out when they would be hit. Right now, whoever is lowest in seniority gets tagged unless he was froze the night before. Most of us understand and accept that concept.

The system that Mick mentioned sounds good. We’re too small for that to work, though. We have only ten CO’s per shift and if an emergency medical trip goes out the brass has to freeze two to cover. Add a call-off and two people with training that day and we’ve got half a shift frozen. And sometimes we’ll have two emergency trips out at the same time. Add an unexpected situation (like a constant suicide watch) and that’s another CO froze. It isn’t common to have an entire shift froze but it does happen now and again.

Life is good, though. It’s nice to have a job to complain about!

Illinois has a pretty complicated OT system. Over the past year there was a big push to outlaw mandatory overtime. That fizzled out. Volunteers will get OT before mandates. Mandates start at the bottom of the seniority list and work up until the bottom 2/3 of the roster has been mandated, then it goes back to the bottom. So the top 1/3 of the roster generally doesn’t get mandated. The mandates zero out every 30 days, so if there are 10 mandates in 30 days, the next day it goes back to the bottom of the seniority list.

IW

WV will freeze ya over!

Ohio mandates, but the volunteers get first choice. After the volunteer list is exhausted, it’s on to freezing lowest in seniority. It happens almost daily at our institution. Management and the union at our institution were nice enough to put in an agreement that you can only be mandated every other day as long as your freeze was for at least an hour. It’s a much better agreement then back in the day when we just got froze everyday regardless of wether you had been mandated for an hour or eight hours the day before. And they could just do it day after day.

With us it is built into our roster. We get to select 15 days out of a quarter (90 days) where we make ourselves available for over time.

Nc Dept of Corrections has been on mandatory overtime for over a year.

Ohio mandates overtime. At my little facility, If there are volunteers, they get the OT. If not, the lowest in seniority gets tagged. And the lowest in seniority can get tagged night after night after night.

I don’t know how many, but Delaware sure has one.

How many states have policies mandating or freezing employees on duty for overtime, in spite of having people willing to volunteer to do overtime?