The Demand: Changing Clothes During Paid Working Hours

Every year, healthcare employees spend nearly a full unpaid workweek changing clothes before and after their shifts. This calculation comes from a pair of nurses who want these clothing changes to count as paid working time and have now submitted their proposal in a motion to the Swedish Association of Health Professionals’ congress.

Employers refer to the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare’s and the Swedish Work Environment Authority’s regulations to ensure good hygiene, which include the requirement that work clothes are only worn on the job and must be changed every day. In other words, this means quite a lot of changing.

Matilda Nordung Byström and Sarah Richards have tried to get their employer to count clothing changes as working hours but have had no success, so now they are trying a motion instead.

“We have the locker room close to the ward. If you’re quick, you can be done in five minutes. But if you add up changing before and after each work shift, it comes to a total of 39 hours in a year. We’re giving away an entire workweek even though the requirement comes from the operations, ” Matilda Nordung Byström tells Vårdfokus.

According to Sarah Richards, the issue has been raised with their immediate manager, but to no avail. After their main health and safety representative suggested submitting a motion to the congress, they did so. She now hopes that other unions will join in, claiming that many other professional groups are just as annoyed.

Two solutions

Ahead of the Swedish Association of Health Professionals’ congress in May, three motions have been submitted demanding that changing into work clothes be counted as working time. In Matilda Nordung Byström and Sarah Richards’ motion, two solutions are proposed: The possibility to check in close to the changing rooms, or to add a standard time for changing to regular working hours.

However, the employers have already shown a negative attitude toward the first proposal and are considered more likely to accept the second.

“Those who start at seven in the morning are expected to be changed by then, ready to take handover and receive patients. But you’re only paid from, for example, a quarter to seven. It’s clear and can’t be abused,” says Sarah Richards.

Matilda Nordung Byström emphasizes that this is not about leaving work fifteen minutes early to get more free time, but rather that it’s an important symbolic matter—showing appreciation and getting paid for what is actually done every day.