I live and work in Southern TX. I came here almost 14 years ago. The wages haven't changed in 14 YEARS!! At some facilities the wages are even less than they were when I first entered this market.
So I encourage any and every nurse to recognize:
1. We are the Patient's Advocate
2. We are worthy of competitive compensation
3. We need to stop accepting wages the way they are now.
Solution: Get your year or two of experience (depending on specialty) and go travel, go to a staffing agency, get the wages that they should be paying every nurse every day. Force these organizations to recognize we won't accept being disregarded. These organizations have the money, they have the capital dollars, they give those dollars to build parking garages and give bonuses to people that make two to three times the wages of the nurses who are providing the care and filling out the electronic billing systems.
I graduated in 1992 and it was the same thing then. Outside of nursing school clinicals, not one of my nursing professors had direct patient care experience for years.
I think you can believe in wanting to do the best for your patients and give them great care but still want to be paid appropriately. I bring a lot to the table with my experience and knowledge. Wanting to be paid for that is not wrong. I’m not a martyr.
We are being asked to do more and more, sacrifice our health and sanity for this pandemic, yet they don’t want to give us raises and basically have to be forced to give us any type of raise because everyone is leaving. That’s not how it should work. You should pay them appropriately and treat them respect. I don’t know why that’s hard to understand.
I can’t travel, but I did leave my job. I recently learned how much taken advantage of I was by my hospital when I interviewed at others. I’m tired of being the one to constantly sacrifice when administration sacrifices nothing. New job, better pay, better benefits, less stress……….. couldn’t turn it down.
Travel nurses do NOT make more than staff nurses. The additional $$$ go to the travel agency .. who pays the traveler their housing expense and .. only in some cases their flight costs. I had to rent a car at my own expense.. just to get to work. Please see the travel nurse forum.
Travel nurses do NOT make more than staff nurses. The additional $$$ go to the travel agency .. who pays the traveler their housing expense and .. only in some cases their flight costs. I had to rent a car at my own expense.. just to get to work. Please see the travel nurse forum.
2 hours ago, Been there,done that said:
Travel nurses do NOT make more than staff nurses. The additional $$$ go to the travel agency .. who pays the traveler their housing expense and .. only in some cases their flight costs. I had to rent a car at my own expense.. just to get to work. Please see the travel nurse forum.
I’ve been both (travel staff and perm). I’m not sure when you traveled last but travel nurses do make more than staff nurses. This is especially true when nurses are at the beginning of their careers and are compensated based upon years’ of experience. For older nurses, it’s pretty much a wash and not really worth the hassle of negotiating a contract every 13 weeks and possibly relocating several times a year IMO
I would respectfully disagree that the only way to get what you want in nursing is to go into traveling for the wages.
I have been a nurse for nine years and I strive to not only provide the best of care to my patients, but I want to impact my workplace and community and make positive changes where I can. I was a member of our hospital's shared governance team and tried to help implement changes that will help the nurses and patients now and in the future.
If everyone subscribes to the "every man for himself" option and focuses on the bottom line of the highest paycheck, that won't lead to environments that anyone wants to work in. I appreciate that travel nurses are using their skillset as a means to an end, and that's fine. However, a vested interest in the hospital and community where you work isn't a bad thing. Would it be great if we were paid the same as travel nurses? Sure. But I am getting by okay on what I have, and I have coworkers that know that they can rely on me and that to me is almost as important.
Travel nurses do NOT make more than staff nurses. The additional $$$ go to the travel agency .. who pays the traveler their housing expense and .. only in some cases their flight costs. I had to rent a car at my own expense.. just to get to work. Please see the travel nurse forum.
You ain't doing something right.
Find your own housing and pocket the stipend. That's how you make money.
I've heard it several times on this post and it gives me hope. The idea that we can't have a say (governance) and compensation is a mind-set that hospital boards want all nurses to have. I know a nursing consultant that travels all over the country and he was explaining the proper way to present ideas and initiatives to these boards and senior leadership. Patient Safety is supposed to be number 1, but if you lead with that then you lose the board and support. You have to give them bottom line numbers, show them how an extra nurse helps retain staff, reduces training costs, recruitment costs, etc. If you lead with creates a better nursing environment, you lose.
Here's the thing we should all remember, nurses will never be paid what we are worth. We should be paid better than we are. Hospitals aren't losing money during the pandemic, they are not making as much money as they would like to and a large part of that is they see nursing as an unnecessary expense. Look quickly around at your local hospitals that have closed units and high holds because of staffing issues. Are they REALLY TRYING to get agency staff on board? Are they throwing new grads at the problem? We must make our voices heard. We have to seize this opportunity to make sure our communities know that we're grossly underpaid and that hospitals have been taking advantage of nurses for years.
I've heard it several times on this post and it gives me hope. The idea that we can't have a say (governance) and compensation is a mind-set that hospital boards want all nurses to have. I know a nursing consultant that travels all over the country and he was explaining the proper way to present ideas and initiatives to these boards and senior leadership. Patient Safety is supposed to be number 1, but if you lead with that then you lose the board and support. You have to give them bottom line numbers, show them how an extra nurse helps retain staff, reduces training costs, recruitment costs, etc. If you lead with creates a better nursing environment, you lose.
Here's the thing we should all remember, nurses will never be paid what we are worth. We should be paid better than we are. Hospitals aren't losing money during the pandemic, they are not making as much money as they would like to and a large part of that is they see nursing as an unnecessary expense. Look quickly around at your local hospitals that have closed units and high holds because of staffing issues. Are they REALLY TRYING to get agency staff on board? Are they throwing new grads at the problem? We must make our voices heard. We have to seize this opportunity to make sure our communities know that we're grossly underpaid and that hospitals have been taking advantage of nurses for years.
Simple economics. For years, hospitals have had the choice of treating nurses better and paying more. They made the financial choice not to, knowing it would cost a certain amount to replace nurses, and to fill gaps with travelers.
This is no different from any business balancing maintenance vs replacement cost of equipment. (In this analogy, nurse = equipment, retention = maintenance) Depending on market factors, this balance changes. For example business dependent on vehicles now re choosing to maintain them longer and better because of the high cost of replacing them.
Now that the cost of travellers is higher, it makes financial sense to maintain- or retain- us. The more nurses shop for better options, travel or otherwise, the more it will be worth treating current staff well.
It has yet to be seen how long it takes the bean counters to figure this out.
If you lead with creates a better nursing environment, you lose.
I knew a physician who sat on a committee where she had occasion to interact with the CEO. At one such meeting she advocated for nursing staff, reporting that nurses were being asked to do more than humanly possible and were overwhelmed with the demands being put upon them and patient care was suffering. The presentation was respectful and professional.
The physician was subsequently invited to a fancy dinner with some higher-ups and flat out threatened. Her job, her livelihood, everything. Even her family was thrown into the conversation. "Doesn't your husband work at [X]? He likes his job there?"
On 9/26/2021 at 9:13 PM, Been there,done that said:
Travel nurses do NOT make more than staff nurses. The additional $$$ go to the travel agency .. who pays the traveler their housing expense and .. only in some cases their flight costs. I had to rent a car at my own expense.. just to get to work. Please see the travel nurse forum.
What???? Even with full bennies, I'm not bringing in more than 16K/month. Not even half of that.
There's a travel position posted at the hospital I am staff for 4.5K/week for 13 weeks LOL!
Hoosier_RN, MSN
3,968 Posts
'93 for me, and it was exactly the same