Are you paid less than new hires?

[jcaste]

I am currently doing a clinical at a hospital where they have a history of paying their established nurses less than the new hire nurses. Their longtime nurses of many years are paid less than brand new RN graduates.

Appearantly, this has been going on for years. I would like to know how common this is? I haven't heard of this issue at other hospitals that I have been at. Does this happen at your facililty? Are you paid less than you are worth?

[Perpetual Student]

Wow, that's lame. It's not the case with my agency. I could somewhat understand not paying experienced nurses all that much more more than new grads, but paying new grads more is absurd. I'd get a job somewhere else that'd pay reasonably instead of allowing a facility to treat me like that.

[caliotter3]

I work in home health, not in a hospital setting, and many times have found out that another nurse is being paid more than me on the same case. What bothers me about the practice is when I'm told that all nurses in the same category are being paid the same. I don't like being on the receiving end of dishonesty. First of all, all things being equal, there shouldn't be any discrepancies in wages, except for justifiable ones. Secondly, the employer should not go against their own stated policy. This creates dissatisfaction that eventually leads to personnel leaving the employer. Most people don't like being taken advantage of if they have other options.

[GrumpyRN63, ADN, RN]

Good God not where I am, I make about 14.00/hr more than a new grad, I don't know how well they pay seasoned hew hires altho

[HM2VikingRN, RN]

I know that this happens at the facility I am currently working for....

(And yes it causes considerable heartburn for the experienced staff.)

[queenjean]

About 10 years ago, the facility where I work had this issue, and instituted something called "compression raises." In effect, whenever they raise the minimum starting salary for new nurses, there is a prorated raise for every nurse in the facility, including nurses who have maxed out the pay scale. Our annual raises are also percentage based; (last year's was something like 2.8%...) so if you make more, you get more of a raise--this too is an effort to prevent new nurses from moving up the payscale faster than employees with significant seniority.

[jcaste]

That sounds like a good system.

[bluefabian]

The thing is, HR are sometimes forced to increase the starting salary of new nurses in order to attract them to work there. Turnovers are so rapid and common these days that when new graduates earn a year or two worth of clinical experience... they will quit and seek opportunities elsewhere. It's not common to hear nurses changing jobs every one and half years - I know many who does.

[ukstudent]

This system is perpetrated by having secrecy clauses in contracts.

How any of you work in a system that makes talking about what you earn against the rules? In which, if you ask each other what one makes can get you written up.

I might not totally like the system that I work under (who does) but it is spelled out in witting how much everyone makes. There is a written table with years experience and the amount payed depending on the year of the contract. There is also no cap on years of experience.

If you are working in a system that does not allow you to talk about pay then you can bet someone is being messed over somewhere.

[tntrn, ASN, RN]

Here's where a good union would be helpful. This was happening at our hospital until about 6 years ago. New hires were being hired in at years of service, and nurses who'd been there for 15,20, 25 years were making far less than the new hires. We negotiated HARD and got an agreement to study all the current employees, factor in their years of service (and not just at our hospital, but other places before that) and over time brought everybody up to a fair salary. Administration was shocked to hear us say that full timers would feel "bad" that part timers would now be getting the same hourly pay. What we told them was that all of us, full, part or perdiems, were just plain PO'd that new people off the street, unproven to us regardless of resume, were being hired in at many levels higher than their most loyal and certainly proven nurses. Part timers and per diems got huge raises over the three years of the contract. Next time we negotiated, we had to do the same dance again, but we did it.

Our salaries are not secret. They are posted in the contract book for all to see.

[PiPhi2004]

I am a new hire and many nurses on my floor make as much as me. I personally think its SICK!! I mean here I am, cluleless on an ICU floor and having these guys save my butt many times and they get paid the same as me?? REDICULOUS!! They deserve triple what I make. I mean, they float, they orient new people, they orient students, they serve on committees, they act as charge nurse, etc. etc. etc. Thats a LOT more duties than me as a lowly new grad!!! We need a union or something because that crap has got to stop or we'll lose all our seasoned nurses!!!

[Tweety, BSN, RN]

Fortunately where I work when they raise the new grad salary, they give an across the board raise to the rest of us. This might hurt someone who say has worked a year, but then has to be raised to the same salary that a new grad makes. But for the most part, long-term employees are rewarded.