What to do about pay?

Nurses General Nursing

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First of all, I still haven't been told what my RN pay is going to be. I argued to get brought up to $22.72, and I have an email saying that would be the rate, but now... the DON that emailed me.... quit.

Are they still obligated to give me my 22.72/hr? or am I going to be bumped back down to 21/hr like they wanted to?

Is my email valid?

I've gotta get outta there.

The money part in nursing is one of the least important things. If one dollar and some cents is making you wanna leave, maybe nursing is not for you. Of course the paycheck is important but nursing is a field that people with heart need to be in. If people are only in it for the money, they will get burnt out real quick.

/rant

I realize you have been poked at by multiple people in this thread, but I just want to drive home the point so you don't continue running around spouting this anymore. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be paid well for the work you do. If you have more experience or are better at what you do then the other people you work with, you should be paid the same or better than they are.

If YOU want to go be the selfless angel who works for free then so be it, that's your choice. Don't tell the rest of us who have 20/40/60k worth of debt from going through school that we should be happy with low wages. /end rant.

For the rest of you reading, my apologies. I've come across way too many self righteous people telling me compensation doesn't matter to them in the nursing field, "the job is the reward", false modesty and the "I'm better than you because I don't care about money" attitude really irks me.:D

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The email I am referring to is FROM my old DON that just quit. He had promised my pay to be at least $1.72 MORE than what the company had changed and began to pay new RNs.

However, upon hire, I was told my pay would be $2 MORE than what the company offered when it all came to a head.

Example: Told I would start at 26, price went down to 24, old DON sent an email to me saying he could only get company to go up to 25.72.

Meanwhile, brand new RN with less experience started at 28.

I hope it works. I really do. If it doesn't start looking. You'll get better.

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Specializes in Advanced Practice, surgery.

MOD NOTE:

Please refrain from making personal attacks when posting, discuss the topic at hand and not individual posters.

Thank you for your cooperation

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\Well, my update is that I emailed the "present" boss a few days ago, and STILL no response!

I get paid Tuesday, so I'm almost 100% positive that I'm getting the lowest wage.....

I'll let you know.

PS: Thanks Sharrie.

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Specializes in LTC Rehab Med/Surg.

I live and work in the rural midwest. I'm an Rn..for 15 years. My mouth is hanging open in shock at the numbers that are flying around this site. I generally put my fingers in my ears and hum real loud when co-workers talk about wages. I don't want to know. Now I think I should have paid more attention to what nurses are earning. $23.72 after working at the same hospital almost 10 years. I work med/surg with no specialties. Still, I'm kinda shocked a new nurse would earn more than myself.

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I realize some consider it crass to discuss/compare wages, but if you don't know what others are making, its tough to determine if you are being fairly compensated.

I live in Ohio, outside of any major cities, and hired on a few months ago and got the minimum starting RN wage of $24 base (we're union, so its easy for me to see what the wage steps are in the hospital, I know I got the lowest). I was/am a new grad with no prior healthcare experience. This is the way the system is supposed to work. If wages are being negotiated based on how attractive they are, or their gender, or because they are buddies with a higher up, then things are messed up and its time to look for a new employer. If a new grad is being hired in at the same rate as a 10 year veteran is making....then its time to resign and find an employer who appreciates you.

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The money part in nursing is one of the least important things. If one dollar and some cents is making you wanna leave, maybe nursing is not for you. Of course the paycheck is important but nursing is a field that people with heart need to be in. If people are only in it for the money, they will get burnt out real quick.

Wow! What a throw back to the 50s, 60s, and 70s! This post was just another reiteration of "you should be in nursing for the satisfaction, not the money." Baloney Sauce! Today's hospital environment has for profit companies with shareholders and executives making 6 digit incomes. Some executives are making 7 digit incomes. Nurses are highly trained and skilled professionals and should be paid as such. Nurses are not paid enough. There is a wholesale attack right now on salaries of nurses being to high. Recently, a CFO from a well respected hospital organization made a speech in Las Vegas that all health care workers salaries need to be cut and all hospital jobs should be outsourced. He was advocating that nurses be contract employees, with the underlying theme that you would bid for the lowest hourly wage on a daily basis to work. Is that the system we want? Quality of care comes at a high price. Nurses are entitled to be paid well for the service and care they give.

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Whatever you have in writing is what you should be paid.

I am at a lost for words, though. $22 per hour? Whaaaat? My friend works at Costco, has no education, and makes more than that. Please look for work elsewhere.

When I started working as an staff nurse RN (a ADN new graduate) 2 years ago I was offered $40 per hour. I thought that was barely making it. BSNs make a few dollars more per hour. I've since been bumped up and make about $44 per hour (a $4 dollar raise for 2 years of service is lousy to me, in my opinion). It is still the same at my hospital even with the current economy. I think I need to say this isn't even a "bad place" to work either - they are very good to their employees. We are unionized so that has something to do with my pay, but even local non-union hospitals pay essentially the same rate. The cost of living around here is cheap, too. I'm really in shock over your pay rate and would be hightailing it out of there as quickly as possible.

That pay rate is a joke for what we have to put up with. Just my two cents.

Just curious, what kind of nursing job is this? I work in Medical-Surgical, so it's not even like I have special qualifications/training/experience.

I completely disagree with the person that said a few dollars and change doesn't make a difference/consider a different career. Please. This is the same type of attitude that allows women and nurses to be paid less than what they are worth. It DOES make a difference and IS important. It may not make a huge difference per hour, but at the end of the year it makes all of the difference. Beyond that, nurses have bills to pay. There's a word for people who have all heart for something without any interest in pay - it's called volunteering. I'm really sick and tired of some nurses saying people shouldn't go into nursing for the money. GET REAL PEOPLE. (I'm not venting at any specific person on here, it's just a general frustraton I have). People pick careers based on the income all of the time, and they are damned good at what they do, too. With that said, there are bad apples in every profession.

Wow, everyday, more and more examples of why Nursing needs UNIONS!!!! Even the non-union hospitals have to compete for nurses when a union hospital is close by. Hopefully one of the outcomes of all this "health care reform" will be a national union for nurses that eveyone is a part of soon.

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I realize some consider it crass to discuss/compare wages, but if you don't know what others are making, its tough to determine if you are being fairly compensated.

I live in Ohio, outside of any major cities, and hired on a few months ago and got the minimum starting RN wage of $24 base (we're union, so its easy for me to see what the wage steps are in the hospital, I know I got the lowest). I was/am a new grad with no prior healthcare experience. This is the way the system is supposed to work. If wages are being negotiated based on how attractive they are, or their gender, or because they are buddies with a higher up, then things are messed up and its time to look for a new employer. If a new grad is being hired in at the same rate as a 10 year veteran is making....then its time to resign and find an employer who appreciates you.

Thank you for yet another justification for a union. I think nursing has reached an all time critical level due to the economic fallout. Hospitals are crushing nurses at the same time the shortage is starting again. When the recovery goes full bloom nurses are going to exit left and right. Who is going to work when they have been abused by hospital administration?

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Wow! What a throw back to the 50s, 60s, and 70s! This post was just another reiteration of "you should be in nursing for the satisfaction, not the money." Baloney Sauce! Today's hospital environment has for profit companies with shareholders and executives making 6 digit incomes. Some executives are making 7 digit incomes. Nurses are highly trained and skilled professionals and should be paid as such. Nurses are not paid enough. There is a wholesale attack right now on salaries of nurses being to high. Recently, a CFO from a well respected hospital organization made a speech in Las Vegas that all health care workers salaries need to be cut and all hospital jobs should be outsourced. He was advocating that nurses be contract employees, with the underlying theme that you would bid for the lowest hourly wage on a daily basis to work. Is that the system we want? Quality of care comes at a high price. Nurses are entitled to be paid well for the service and care they give.

Here is the article on the speech:

Are healthcare workers paid too much?

January 27, 2010 | Richard Pizzi, Editor

LAS VEGAS - Healthcare in the United States is becoming increasingly unaffordable, and one of the contributing factors may be the high salaries earned by healthcare employees.

Speaking recently at the Symposium on Payment Solutions for Healthcare Providers and Payers in Las Vegas, William Bertschinger, divisional chairman of finance at the Mayo Clinic, said healthcare labor costs are driving systemic inefficiency.

"Seventy percent of the high cost of healthcare is due to labor costs," Bertschinger said. "There are too many full-time employees and too many employees paid at too high a rate."

Bertschinger discussed data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Kaiser/HRET Survey of Employer-Sponsored Health Benefits that showed the earnings of healthcare workers rising at a faster rate than overall U.S. workers and faster than overall inflation.

For instance, the overall inflation rate in 2008 was 29 percent higher than in 1999. U.S. workers' earnings rose 34 percent over that same period, while healthcare workers' earnings have risen 57 percent since 1999. Bertschinger noted that the upward trend in healthcare salaries has increased since 1999, with healthcare workers generally earning 1-4 percent more per year than non-healthcare workers.

"In order to cut costs in healthcare, we need to reduce the number of full-time employees, reign-in salaries, and stop increasing the fees we charge patients," Bertschinger said.

Healthcare salaries are not usually mentioned as part of the overall affordability equation, Bertschinger said. He noted that even when healthcare executives have made hard decisions to cut full-time employees, the potential savings were not "banked," but were simply redeployed to other areas of the budget.

A big part of the problem is the healthcare revenue cycle itself, Bertschinger claimed. Revenue cycle has the lowest patient satisfaction scores in healthcare, and the highest costs per patient - 70 to 90 percent of which are labor costs.

"The healthcare revenue cycle is not complex, it's convoluted," Bertschinger said. "We spend 5 percent of our total costs - or $120 billion - on the revenue cycle. That's in addition to another $600 billion - or 25 percent - on administration. It's really a sad state we're in."

A sea change in management philosophy is necessary to move healthcare toward systemic affordability, Bertschinger said.

"Leadership is the number one factor in changing the culture of healthcare," he said. "Cost reductions will occur when there are fewer people providing services at fewer facilities, working at a much lower pay scale."

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He noted that even when healthcare executives have made hard decisions to cut full-time employees

These healthcare execs are also full-time employees. Instead of cutting down on docs, nurses, aides, etc. maybe they coud cut down on enormous bonuses for executives. Just a thought. One of their salaries and bonuses could save the jobs of four others that are needed more than another figure head out of touch with the realities of bedside care. Cut them out and that's a big savings as well.

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Maybe we take the for-profit motive out of health care? I remember when hospitals were not for profit. All of the profit goes into salaries and equipment, not to share holders that only want to see their stock prices soar. Today, when someone says "try to send that nurse home before the matrix says to so we can save money and increase our pay" I remind them that the only ones that are going to profit from any expense saving measure is the shareholders. The employees are only going to be abused.

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