[brian]

But wages are near the bottom of national rankings.



WEST BURLINGTON — Great River Medical Center registered nurses, who are nearing the end of their current three–year contract and are in negotiations with hospital officials ahead of a midnight Friday strike deadline, are paid at levels comparable to other RNs across rural Iowa.

Compared to nurses in other parts of the United States, however, local wages lag far behind.

How those two disparate facts are playing out at the negotiating table is a matter that is being kept behind closed doors. Without getting into details of each side's starting position, Communication Workers of America Local 7181 president Nancy Moser offered this insight:

"Any time you start wage negotiations," she said, "you tend to look nationally, the hospital looks locally, and hopefully you'll meet somewhere in between."

Hospital spokesman Craig Borchard said the current wage range for RNs at GRMC is from $18.20 for a new nursing school graduate to $25.55 per hour for a nurse at the top of the pay ladder. In a comparison with data from the Iowa Department of Workforce Development, the hospital pays better than the average for the region for RNs working in and out of hospitals.

Full Story: http://www.thehawkeye.com/daily/stories/ln19_0930.html

[CCU NRS]

This is sort of how I see things in My state, We had a VP visit with us recently during a staff meeting and I asked about wages, which we did get an across the board raise last June for RN's but I asked about the use of agency and why wages could not be raised to what agency nurses make, explaining that if our wages were what agency pay was most nurses would come to staff, I also explained that it is hard to work next to somebody making half again what you are for the same job because they can for whatever reason work agency.

He explained that the across the board raise made my facility, the highest paying in the state and rasied the state high wage, he alsoo explained that he would be looking at more money in the future but that they had to consider all departments. I was actually pretty happy with the guy, I asked him his long term plan and he said he was here for at least 5 years because his daughter was going to go to HS here and then college too(OU)so he wasn't trying to make quick fixes and he was looking toward the future.


We are not Unionized in my state we are in fact a free work state meaning that even Unionized business can use non-union wokrers

I wish all Unionized workers Good Luck in their negotiations and Hope no one has to go without anyting.