NRC limits workers to 48 hrs/wk

[Already Gone]

That's perfectly legal for non-manual workers.  However, most of the work is done by the manual labor force.  It is illegal to pay non-clerical, non-management workers that way.  The law requires that they be paid an hourly wage and not a salary.  It also requires that their overtime be paid in the form of money and certainly NOT time off in lieu of OT.  If they work over 40 hours in a week, they must be paid OT.  Averaging, deferring, or otherwise "juggling the books" on overtime is strictly against the law.
This is why there is no way on this earth that I would ever accept a salaried job.

[SloGlo]

management usually does not get OT under professional employee status..

i never sayed management got ot.  i sayed they billed it.  'n office 101 teaches you that the more you bill the more you will make.  it won't show up in this weeks check, it'll show up in your  bonus, yer stock options, yer 1st class airline tix, yer stocked booze cabinet.  but it will show up because you are making more moola for the company.  'n ya learned in every business discipline 101 class that the more you make for the company, the more you make.

[Already Gone]

the risk is rather high and not acceptable... the rate of accidents will increase at the 72 hour level.. its a proven statistic.. 

This is really getting to be a burr under my saddle.  Twice in this thread you allude to statistics which simply do not exist.  If you are aware of studies or other compiled data which supports this assertion, then please share it with us.
I have exhaustively searched the BLS tables for the years 1998 - 2004, and find that they just do not have as much as a footnote declaring that they are even aware of the incident rates based on hours worked per day or per week.  The closest you can get is the raw number of injuries vs. hours worked prior to the injury and by day of the week.
(BTW, they do not compile data on "accidents", or "lost time accidents".  They report the total number of "non-fatal injuries and illnesses resulting in days away from work".  One "accident" will never show up in the data, but could be reported in several different places depending on the injuries involved.  So, a single event which results in an OSHA recordable injury, a fatality, and a non-fatal injury resulting in days away from work, will be recorded in three different reports, but not as a single "accident".)
Anyway, the time with the highest number of injuries is two to less than four hours after the start of shift.  The second highest period is six to less than 8 hours.  This bears out the established concept that workers are more likely to be injured in the periods before lunch and before quitting time.  (Time pressure rears its ugly head again.)  Although the number of injuries after 10 hours is lower, just as the number of injuries is lower on Sundays or after 12 hrs or 16 hrs, these numbers tell nothing because fewer people work at those times.  The statistic which purportedly states that there is a higher probability of injury after 10 hrs per day or 72 hrs per week is just plain nonexistent.

So, if you have this data from some other authoritative source, post it here.  Otherwise, please stop saying things that are not supported by the data as if they were undeniably true.

[Already Gone]

The view from up here;

That opening line explains perfectly the rest of the post.  It seems to have been written while you were high.  It reads like one of those "stream-of-consciousness" pieces -- the NukeWorker.com version of Gravity's Rainbow.

When you come down, would you be so kind as to make your point, please?

[alphadude]

While some amount of overtime is often operationally needed and desired by some employees, excessive overtime hours can compromise safety, health and productivity – adding to the true costs of long working hours of exempt and non-exempt workers. These indirect costs relate, for example, to an increased risk of heart attacks; diabetes; high blood pressure and mental illness; a greater risk of retirement disability; increased safety risks due to human error; lowered productivity and presenteeism; increased chance of turnover and absenteeism; and costs of potential liability issues and law suits.

Few studies have directly investigated the financial consequences of long working hours. For example, in a study on white-collar jobs, performance decreased by as much as 20% when 60 or more weekly hours are worked (Nevison, 1992). Data from 18 manufacturing industries in the U.S. show that a 10% increase in overtime resulted, on average, in a 2.4% decrease in productivity measured by hourly output ( Shepard and Clifton, 2000). High overtime levels can cause poor employee morale, which can affect productivity and absenteeism. For example, Circadian showed that 31% of extended hours operations that have extremely high overtime hours (25% or greater) also had poor morale, compared to only 13% of companies with low or normal overtime (Kerin, 2003). Long working hours and overtime contribute to increased worker fatigue and safety problems. For example, the average cost of workers compensation claimed per individual at extended hours facilities that reported severe fatigue problems was considerably higher ($4,037) than at facilities that report moderate ($2,240), minor ($981) or no ($276) fatigue problems.

need any more???

[Already Gone]

I asked you to draw a picture and you threw paint at the wall.

Yeah, working a lot of ovetrime makes people tired.  We don't need NIOSH to tell us that.
The full text of the article you posted can be found here:

www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/workschedules/abstracts/dawson.html

Fatigue can be managed during long work hours.  Even at extended-hours operations (like a nuke plant during an outage) the frequency of breaks actually has a much greater effect on worker fatigue and risk levels than the length of the shifts.

So anyway, when and where are you going to Google a statistic that proves your contentions that :

1) "and after 60 or so hours you are at risk with higher error rates and lost time accidents. "

and

2) "the rate of accidents will increase at the 72 hour level.. its a proven statistic.. "

There is no such thing as a "proven statistic".  Statistics are used to prove or disprove theories.  Still you haven't come up with one that matches the statements attributed to you above.

Nobody, including me, is contending that overtime is harmless.  We are just calling it for what it is - a necessary reality in the current state of the commercial nuclear industry.  Asserting that long work hours have no effect on safety would be just as irresponsible as ... say...  extracting bogus statistics from a posterior orifice ... perhaps?

[alphadude]

this is a dead horse...

True enuff Marssim, its been an ongoing condition here with the technicians.  Roadtechs aka roadw**** suffered from the same situation and had to rein in the surley crew they had, so they migrated here.

Point being.. you can't live by overtime.. its a loss for industry,  presents risks that are not fully evaluated or ignored by industry and in a high risk situation such as nuclear power inappropriate. Increases stress in workers manifests itself around 60 hours of work and productivity drops drastically around the 72 hour level with noted loss of attention to detail in the work process. Increased exposure, fatigue, manifested stress- precursors to the "proven statistic" that workers comp does increase with longer hours worked.

Simple "fatigue management" by taking extra breaks does not remove the employee from the stressfull enviroment that will eventually take its toll.

[Already Gone]

the point was made - "In the meantime we will continue to "improvise, adapt and overcome",..."

you need to read the entire post before you ridicule,...

additionally, there is no entry in my service jacket granting me an exemption for "experimental" use of marijuana, the answer was no and still is to this day, I've never been "high",...don't insinuate it,

if you feel compelled to sling insults at people there is a "No Holds Barred" section on these forums, why should I pay $36.50 for another year of gold membership when I can get insulted in this thread for free?

I apologize if you took insult.  The comment was not directed at you so much as at your style of writing.  The lack of punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure (considered by most people to be laziness and a lack of respect toward the reader) made it ... well, quite frankly ... barely coherent and tedious to read.  The combination of that style and your opening line ( which should be viewed as pretentious if not outright arrogant) made it too hard for me not to take a shot.  You made the target so big nobody could miss it.

I do actually agree with your premise, at least the summary.  We must improvise, adapt, and overcome.  The challenge is real because it exists in the real world.  We cannot improve the situation by following the unrealistic dictates of people who decide (because they took some business courses and accepted salaried positions) that overtime is a no-no.  To them, and to alphadude I say, "thanks for the input, but can you tell me something that is useful to me in the actual situation I'm facing?"

The reality won't change just because the latest flavor-of-the-month Business School fad says that it should. 

So alphadude, if you had read in depth the report you cut and pasted above, you would have read the part where it says that workers comp costs rise where there is overtime AND high levels of fatigue.  Given that overtime WILL NOT GO AWAY, the only alternative is to manage the fatigue.  You give the impression that you have some sort of management position.  That puts the ball in your hands.  You can make the change that is needed (managing workload and fatigue) or you can just rant about how bad overtime is.  Somehow I feel that your position on OT might have been different if you were getting paid for it and only got the opportunity to work 20 -25 weeks per year.

[alphadude]

I make changes daily thats part of process improvement.  There is no ranting, planned overtime  for non-emergent, non-emergency work is a process failure. plain and simple.

and if frogs had wings...

beercourt you have been in the trenches too long..

[M1Ark]

snip.. There is no ranting, planned overtime  for non-emergent, non-emergency work is a process failure. plain and simple.

...snip...

Is a refuel outage a process failure?

[Roll Tide]

How about this excerpt from a recent news release:


    The IG also found that:

        * Wackenhut routinely worked officers in excess of the 60 hr/week maximum
      at the Y-12 National Security Complex and some worked more than 72 hours
      per week in some cases. Working excessive overtime affects the ability
      or willingness of some officers to complete required physical fitness
      training.


http://us.rd.yahoo.com/finance/news/article/print/SIG=121av1i7p/*http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060425/dctu036.html?.v=48&printer=1


Just thought we could use more gasoline on this fire....

[alphadude]

no a refuel outage is not a process failure.. its a routine...that is normally planned for... and your question is?

[SloGlo]

the prob for the business in the midpoint of the fuel cycle is the reliance upon trained workers to work for half a year per year and not receive a full years worth of compensation for this exercise.  should the business realign the corporate mentality towards the independent, i.e. itinerant, workers with a compensation package reflective of full time commitment then the question of hours worked per week will be a needless exercise.  until such time, the amount of hours worked will be counted upon by the workers involved since the weeks not worked will be counted as a fiscal balance.  there have been many models of the worker/total compensation put into play in the u.s. domestic market and the international labor market.  unfortunately for the workers in the theatre, there has not been a consistency in the u.s.   and that is where this problem is being addressed, is it not?