nurse salary

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the president of my hospital held an annual employee forum last night and without saying pretty much stated that nursing is not one of hi priorities. when we asked about a cost of living raise, he stated that our pay was already competitive enough. RN's base rate is $18.45/hr? are we getting screwed?

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Specializes in LTC, Med Surg, Doctor's office.
the president of my hospital held an annual employee forum last night and without saying pretty much stated that nursing is not one of hi priorities. when we asked about a cost of living raise, he stated that our pay was already competitive enough. RN's base rate is $18.45/hr? are we getting screwed?

I think you are. I've been an LPN 2 years and make$17 in LTC. I don't know if hospitals normally pay more or less.

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Actually depends on where you are living. To be honest the "good living" salary that seems to be promoted, I think is a big of a myth.

It is true, that there are few professions where after just a Bachelors degree, or less, one can earn 40-55K yearly- and have a job just about anywhere. However, I've seen a lot of people thinking about 30.00 an hour as low end, and having very unrealistic ideas about salaries.

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hi

don't know where all of you are from ; but in Canada province of Manitoba we start at $25 and work to $32 in 5 years per union contract

when I travel to Az. in winter to work I get $29 plus travel and lodging

your wages seem low and possibly you should look at change. or renegotiate

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In NY starting salary is approx $33/hr with awesome benefits.

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school nurse here - in my county all nurses b(RN, LPN, BSN) have base salary of just over $9.00 - with differential and incentives for previous experience (up to 5 documented years) and supplemental education - we are not a blip on the union's radar because there are only 20 of us and we're not considered a group large enough to negotiate for.... even the teacher aides base is better than ours :shrug: most do this because we love it and/or because we have limitations that prevent doing more physically demanding nursing....

when I worked ICU/CCU - I worked 7p-7a - and made around $30-40 - but that was through an agency and there was no insurance, vacation, benefits or security.... :)

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Specializes in Telemetry, OR, Admin, Education.

I love being told we are "competitive". Having been a manager for a number of years, it is managment-speak for "You are just another chunk of overhead, and we think that is costing us too much, but we want to keep you here and not walk down the street. We therefor collude with other employers to keep wages down by doing annual salary surveys and trying not to step too far out of line so there is little incentive for you to walk." :uhoh3:

In global economic terms, this is called a cartel.

On the other hand, as nurses we are horrible at negotiation for ourselves (we are pretty good, usually, for patients) and somehow feel guilty about demanding more money, benefits, etc. We also tend to look at the hourly number as all there is--retirement plans, medical plans, vacation, child care, and other benefits count, too. And more than anything, the environment where you spend 75% of your waking hours is worth a lot, but does not directly translate into $$$.

Sadly, I attended the Masters level graduation ceremony of a local university this year. The MSN graduates were outnumbered 4 to 1 by the Health Services Administration graduates. We are ruled by bean-counters, and they are breeding.:o

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thanks for the replies. our president is promised med surg a meeting within the next month. i am interested to find out what he has to say. i hope nobody out there has gotten the wrong impression about me. i ilove my job and what i do. but i am tired of short shifting and working short and not being compensated for it. the hospital is so into the "business" part of things.it seems as though the only people that count are the non-clinincal staff. we just had our holidays revamped so that the salary people who never come in contact with patients can have 4 day holidays on thanksgiving and christmas. yet we sacrifice spending christmas eve with our families to make straight time while they are home sipping $1,000 bottles of wine with their family and friends. i nunderstrand that these people are needed to run the hospital, but without nurses there are no patients and no patients mean no hospital.

does anyone out there work for a hospital with a union? does it work?

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