Wage compression

[OC_An Khe]

I am curious about how big a problem wage compression is throuhout the country. By wage comprssion I mean the difference between the lowest pay for a staff RN and the highest pay for a staff RN in your institution. In many career feilds, both professional and non professional expirienced practictioners have salary ranges more than double or triple the wages over the structure, while I have not found this to be true with RNs.

At myi nstitution we start newbies at $25/hour while the max is $30/hr after 13 years of expirience. Thats about a $10,000/yr difference for a FT RN. Not much of an incentive for retention. Not much of a reward for the length of a career.

As I have said just curious as to what's happening around the country.

I know cost of living varies greatly around the country (I'm in a high cost area) and am really interested in the spread from high to low.

[fergus51]

I know what you're saying jt. Personally, I won't work non-union anymore, but my dog is a chihuahua and I promised her the next move would be somewhere warmer! Your winters are worse than mine in Canada!

[Hardknox]

Key words--"IT"S THE NURSES WHO DEMANDED IT AT THE TABLE"!!!!

Wage compression and all the other problems we have in nursing will still be there until the day I die because nurses are for the most part like sheep, can never seem to get together and talk with one voice. And don't ask what I've done about it because I helped unionize our hospital, served on the nurses commitees, bargaining unit and still nothing changes. Administration doesn't realize that Abe Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation to free the slaves included nurses. And sadly, many nurses are so worried about loosing their jobs they continue to knuckle under to unsafe staffing, deplorable conditions and crappy incentives to stay even with a severe nursing shortage where a nurse should gain some power. Many people work hard to change things, but as for the rank and file--we ARE our own worst enemy.

[Teshiee]

Frustrating! Wage compression=work compression they wouldn't like that very much. They do what we allow them to do.