I work at a union hospital, I feel that I am paid a fair wage and am happy with my insurance plan and benefits. While I am traditionaly not a pro union person, I do see the need for unions in some situations. My primary gripe with unions is that, in my experience, they promote political issues that I disagree with. One example is the push for an increase in the minimum wage. I don't want to get into a debate about if the minimum wage should or should not be increased, I just want to see if any of you agree or disagree with the opinion I'm about to express.
For the ease of explaining what I'm thinking I'm going to just use arbitrary numbers here. Lets say minimum wage is $5.00/hr and RN pay is $20.00/hr.
The various factors in the economy have determined that an RN makes $20/hr, or that the value of the RN is worth $15 more than than that of an unskilled or minimum wage worker.
I'm thinking that if my union is pushing for the minimum wage to increase to (for example only) $14/hr, then the union should be pushing just as hard for the RN wage to also increase by 50%. If the union does not push for an equal pay increase for the RN's it represents, then isn't it diminishing the value of the RN's education/skills/knowledge. What I'm saying is it seems that to close the gap between an RN's pay and minimum wage, we are effectively earning less or our jobs have been devalued. I'm wondering if this makes sense and if anyone agrees or disagrees and why.
Unlike past politial threads I've commented in, I promise to keep civil. I'm only interested in discussion and getting some of your input.
If the point is that when people making wages far below you get a raise and you don't, you're essentially getting a pay cut since you're relative value to them has now been decreased, then would that mean you'd be just as happy with a raise for yourself as you would a pay cut for the people making less than you?
I think nursing wages are more impacted by the availability of nurses in a glutted market. It's a large part of the reason a PT can command more than $100/day than an RN with equivalent experience, more responsibilty and better hours in my field. When you've got layers of nurses clamoring for the same job openings, wages and working conditions remain inferior. Change the supply and demand, improve the wages.
I just re read and realize I jumbled my point. The RN case managers have equitable experience and more responsibility while potentially having to work weekends, holidays, evenings and/or take call.
Even if we raised the minimum wage well beyond the most recent proposal (to $10.10) all the way up to $15/hr, the price of a Big Mac would only go up 68 cents, raising it to $10 would only raise it about 20 cents. (Even less when you consider the added cost would likely be distributed among all menu items).
Keep in mind that we're not talking about giving min wage workers more money than we have in the past, since the minimum wage has continuously decreased over time in relation to inflation, we're just talking about maintaining the same value over time.
It should also be noted that you're actually already paying that extra amount for your fast food meal, just in a different form; public assistance for fast food workers, which costs us $7 billion per year. Raising the minimum wage to $10 doesn't actually change what these workers costs, it just puts the cost where it belongs; with the employer.
My struggle with the increase in minimum wage is that if it brings a worker to an income higher than what they qualified for subsidies at, the increase in income will not cover the costs of the things they lost access to. In my state, the proposed change is just over $7/hr to just over $10/hr. This change will lose a person their health benefits, section 8 housing, food stamps, WIC, and whatever else I'm missing. $120 per week won't cover that. The idea of raised minimum wage is to benefit the low-income earner while taking people "off the system". There needs to be some way of bridging the gap between new wages and loss of subsidies.
That said... In some of these places looking at going up to $15, this actually makes me a bit angry. You have college graduates making little more than that. The skilled labor force might expect to make that. I don't want to say any one person (occupation) is actually "better" than another, but I really don't think it's reasonable for someone washing dishes to make the same amount as a person who spent years of their lives and countless thousands of dollars learning a skill, trade, or went to college. Every contributor to society is a vital part of it, but if we are to adjust minimum wage by multiple dollars per hour, wages would be pretty screwed up without looking at higher than minimum wage earners as well. Perhaps this is idealized or naive, and I'm okay with admitting that, but I do think an LPN should get paid much better than a cashier.
MunoRN, RN
8,058 Posts
If the point is that when people making wages far below you get a raise and you don't, you're essentially getting a pay cut since you're relative value to them has now been decreased, then would that mean you'd be just as happy with a raise for yourself as you would a pay cut for the people making less than you?