Negotiating Night Differential

Nurses Union

Published

Our facility is non-unionized but we do have an Employee's Association which is in charge of negotiating employment policies and wages. The annual wage increase is 1% across the board (which is dismal compared to average rate of inflation, but that's another story), however the night differential has not been increased at all for approximately five years and currently is at 0.90$/hr compared with evening differential at 0.75$/hr. The association committee has not been interested in bringing the issue to the table since they feel nights does not deserve an increase due to lower care needs (which is not always the case). As the night supervisor/lead nurse I'd like to approach management directly with negotiations on behalf of my team. Are there any foreseeable issues with doing this, and does anyone have suggestions with how to format the proposal? Is it worth bringing up comparative rates for our province and increased health risks associated with working night shifts?

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Specializes in OB-Gyn/Primary Care/Ambulatory Leadership.

I absolutely would take the approach of it being a health issue. It should be considered "hazard pay"

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Your night differential is only 90 cents? Yikes! The facilities I've worked, it was $4-5 an hour! Though, you mention province so you may be Canadian (I'm in the U.S.)...would be curious to see what's typical there. I would definitely bring it up, like klone mentioned, as basically hazard pay.

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I haven't seen a night differential less than $3/hr for nurses. ..

Do they have trouble staffing nights? I mean it isn't solely about the amount of work but the sheer inconvenience it has on the life of the nurse! Their life is impacted outside of the hospital too.

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Specializes in Medsurg/ICU, Mental Health, Home Health.

My shift differential in the hospital was always a percentage vs. a dollar value. It worked much better that way, I thought.

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If not paid well, its not hard to guess how motivated they are to serve?

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My night shift differential in one Canadian province is $1.85 per hour. Not sure about evenings because I just work nights!

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Our 3PM - 11PM is $2.75

Our 11PM - 7AM is $3.75

On the weekends, add $2.00 to both of those.

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