Salary and not hourly?

[manurse06]

I just started a few weeks ago at a major metro teaching hospital. We are paid a salary (i.e. 12 hours for a 12 hour shift even if we are there for 15). You don't clock in or out. Is anyone else paid like this? I feel like this is a really raw deal as I work 50 hours a week and get paid for 40. The hospital I am at has a great reputation, but I am beginning to think it is not worth it. They also have no differentials (just a standard add on of a few dollars an hour for everyone) and I work a day night rotation! Being a new nurse is hard enough and I am quickly loosing all motivation. Any similar experiences?

[RNKay31]

Wow, that is crazy, and I would never work for that company, LOL, I like to count my money by the hours, hahaha.

[CarVsTree]

And after they burn through this crop of "Salaried" New Grads who wanted to gain useful experience at the BIG hospital, they'll hire the next crop. Just remember, you're preceptor will probably have about 1 year(s) experience.

We need to act like professionals and not work for organizations like this. Nursing in a hospital is not a corporate job. You can't put the project away until tomorrow. Residents put patients that belong in ICU on your Med-Surg floor, and you'll spend you're whole night caring for that patient and trying to get them to ICU. Someone will figure out by 5 a.m. that your ICU patient needs to be in the unit. Then you'll spend the next hour, packing them up, giving report, transporting (with another nurse, an ambu bag, etc.). Than you'll come back to your unit, finally give out your 6 a.m. meds at 5 to 7, and hope you can be done charting by 9:00. All for your "salaried" experience at the big city hospital where the residents will learn from their mistakes and you'll pay for them. Only not with your time but with your lost wages.

Just say no to these labor practices that are designed to take advantage of nurses. We are professinals - we don't need a "salary" to prove it. My hourly wage and overtime pay, does me just fine for my professional ego.

[RNsRWe, ASN, RN]

:yeahthat:

[chris_at_lucas_RN, RN]

I am probably the last one who should be saying this, since I am salaried and a 50 hour week is a short one for me, but if we are salaried and expected to work x number of hours to receive that salary, then we need to have the internal organization and discipline to get up and leave when we reach that hour of the day.

The problem with equating being salaried and being professional is, for other professionals who are salaried, flexing our schedules, being able to duck out for an appointment, or whatever, is not possible. When your hours are up, if your relief isn't there (maybe because he or she isn't due in for another 3 hours or so!?), you are jammed.

I'd make sure my work was done and I would be ready to walk out the door when the time comes. If hospitals want to control the costs of overtime by putting nurses on salary, they need to be prepared to have nurses either burn out because they give too much away (working overtime with no compensation) or don't stick around when the clock strikes 12 because their shift is up, no matter what the need is.

Interestingly, hospitals that pay hourly and overtime have the above issues too, but maybe not as much.

Getting fairly compensated for your hard work is a big part of the lesson entitled "the value of money."