With so many police departments struggling to maintain minimum staffing requirements and others working to avoid shortages due to massive numbers of retirements in the near future, administrators have resulted to increasing shift lengths. In some cases, shifts have been increased by 50% per day!
The dreaded forced overtime! What happens when someone books off sick? A 12-hour shift turns into 16 or even 18 hours of a torturous endurance test!
The total negative impact of these longer hours is almost incalculable. The shortened turnaround times result is police officers having to make a choice between sleep and family time or sleep and chores around the house or sleep and personal care like doctors’ visits or sleep and running errands. Overall less time for police officers to take care of themselves.
Police officers interpersonal relationships suffer as well. Marital relationships require time commitments to nurture them, and shortened turnaround times do not allow for that quality time. Parent child relationships suffer as fewer activities can be enjoyed together.
Keep in mind, the single most important thing a parent can give to their child is their time!
The Maine Department of Labor has recently posted some guidance on workplace fatigue in the form of links to important information! Specifically, on the front page of the Department’s SafetyWorks! website, under the section “What’s New” the first link is “Preventing Workplace Suicides” and the second link is “Working Fatigued“. As of this writing, both of those links are prominently displayed on their front page.
http://www.safetyworksmaine.com
https://www.maine.gov/labor/Templates/news_template.shtml?id=8209663#Working%20Fatigued
The “Preventing Workplace Suicides” link will take you to the United States Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Healthy Administration’s website where you will find valuable tips and resources!
https://www.osha.gov/preventingsuicides
The “Working Fatigued” link will also take you to the United States Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Healthy Administration’s website where you will finds tips and resources on reducing risks for workplace injuries caused by fatigue!
https://www.osha.gov/worker-fatigue/hazards
What Does Maine Labor Law Say?
An interesting and important section of Maine law should be noted when considering increasing the number of hours each police officer is required to work.
Under the Maine Department of Labor, police officers are covered by the Rest Break section which reads:
§601. Rest breaks
In the absence of a collective bargaining agreement or other written employer-employee agreement providing otherwise, an employee, as defined in section 663, may be employed or permitted to work for no more than 6 consecutive hours at one time unless the employee is given the opportunity to take at least 30 consecutive minutes of rest time, except in cases of emergency in which there is danger to property, life, public safety or public health. This rest time may be used by the employee as unpaid mealtime, but only if the employee is completely relieved of duty. [PL 2017, c. 219, §7 (AMD).]
- Small business. This section does not apply to any place of employment where:
A. Fewer than 3 employees are on duty at any one time; and [PL 1985, c. 212 (NEW).]
B. The nature of the work done by the employee allows the employee frequent paid breaks of a shorter duration during the employee’s workday.