to think that as an experienced midwife I should earn more than a window cleaner?

[whatinthewhatnow]

My mum's window cleaner charges £18 for an hour's work. I get £17. Does society really value window cleaners more than midwives?

In no way showing off, and this rarely happens, but I did dramatically save a teeny life on wednesday. It was really fricking scary. I work so hard, my women seem to really like me and I really do try so hard for them. I feel totally undervalued and stressed and I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth it, for £17 a bloody hour. FFS. .

Is there a shortage of midwives? Just from people on here there seems to be no shortage of people who want that job. So clearly they are being paid enough.

Midwives starting salary is 21k, not sure how much London weighting is. So nowhere near 40k

Op - are you fucking serious???

You have sick pay, holiday pay, overtime. A self employed einduw cleaner gets none of this. You are paid more than the national average, you have job security, you have rights

I came from six month freelance contracts to a job with the NHS and I still cannot believe I still get paid when on annual leave.

DP is self employed and his income halved a few years ago due tk recession.

Band 6 is 25k, Going up to 34k after 10 years.

Sorry, but you need to take into account that window cleaners (and other tradesmen) don't get; holiday pay, sick pay, any benefits, or a company pension , paid lunch breaks. They have to pay for their own equipment, upkeep of tools, own transport, usually insurances. Lots of time spent outside, or on feet or knees all day doing a physically tiring job. As well as all the other crap that comes with being self employed! Never a sure wage, slow slow periods around Christmas.

DH is a carpenter/joiner, and occasionally fits the odd kitchen/tiles a floor or whatever. I'm a bit bitter about this but recently he was looking at a job and when he told the customer (who was was a teacher) how much it would cost for him to re tile her hallway floor in a mosaic tile and replace skirtings. Customer said;

"But, I went to university and I don't make that much a day! That's a lot a year you know!"

DH was very sweet about it, I'm afraid I'd have told her to fuck off and put her university degree to good use and tile it herself then.

What I'd like to know is why a newly qualified midwife earns £21,000 after, what is it 4 years of university training?

And a starting salary for a tube train driver with 16 weeks training is £40,000.

That is nuts.

And perhaps demonstrates that male dominated occupations are deemed of higher worth and status even if they require lower qualifications to enter...

Folk have no idea, I'm a band 5 midwife, have been one for longer than usual due to extended maternity leave I started on 21k and have moved up to the dizzying heights of 22.5k 3 years post reg.

Tube drivers are paid a ridiculous amount. You can't justify pay rises across the board because of them.

Tube drivers are very unionised and strike at the drop of a hat to get the terms they want. Nurses and midwives aren't like that.

Midwives don't get paid lunch breaks surely? I'm sure we don't?

A Band 7 is around 42K in London and the top of the scale reaches to about 46K. Most newly qualified midwifes start on Band 5 after 2-3 years experience you are eligible to seek a Band 6 post, it doesn't take 10 years to reach this point unless you dont put yourself forward for promotion or bother to do extra qualifications.

London weighting is 20% salary or up to a maximum of £6,217.

I'm a Band 6 in London (not a MW) and my full time salary inc. LW is just over 30k, so nowhere near 40k No paid breaks, I don't think any NHS staff get paid breaks.

A window cleaner will charge what people are happy to pay, it's not like (some parts of) the banking sector that creams off cash despite not being that successful.

Also, I don't get the binman argument, as usually people seem to think that those doing unskilled yet not very attractive jobs should get paid more in "well you wouldn't catch me doing that" kind of way.

No, it takes 10 years to get to the top of Band 6. One increment a year.

Beginning of Band 6 is 24k a year.

London Weighting is only 20% if you're classed as "inner London". I'm outer London, so I get 15% even though my commuting costs and living costs are the same. There's also a fringe allowance of 5% but the areas that covers are still extortionately expensive generally.

I'm a Band 6 in London but not a midwife my pro-rata salary is about 36-37K. In my discipline you could up till recently really top your money up by doing Out of Hours work.

I once saw my colleaugue's claim form for a months overtime totalling 2 grand, this was on top of his normal salary for that month. I thought similar to this, nurses and midwifes can also make more money by doing extra Bank shifts

Very little overtime where I work, and pretty tough going on full timers who work 37.5 plus the unpaid breaks plus very often days and nights in a week. I think more than 3-4 12 H.R. shifts in a week is very very hard. Especially with a night/day turn around.

Easier for part timers if you have the childcare, but that's the reason most of us are part time. We haven't.

Threads like this make me think how different life might have been if I'd gone for a more regular job. However I'm very lucky in other ways and will try to remember that when alarm goes off tomorrow morning. Sometimes people are pleased with the service and think we do ok and that cheers me. Fingers crossed this week is like that.

Trio I simply don't believe that. If you paid everyone the same according to their need, and paid for their training in whatever they wanted/showed the aptitude to do then some people would still invest their time in studying and some people would be happier to do the jobs that other people look down on, because there would be no need to look down on them anymore.
Idealistic as ever.

When I said "paid lunch breaks" that was misleading, what I meant (in a roundabout!) was that DH most often can't stop for lunch, or he doesn't fit a full day in- ie doesn't get paid a full days wage. Not explaining it well!!

flipping £17 per hour yeah, I agree, I wouldn't get out of bed for that!

clemetteattlee - that's (pretty much) Marxism in a nutshell.

I don't much fancy that, given how well it's worked elsewhere...

I never get these threads!

If you dont like the terms and conditons of your job then change it. And if you wanted to be a midwife so badly then presumably you researched the pay and conditions before applying. You don't have to do the job you do, you chose to.

Why does it matter what anyone else is earning? As long as I earn enough for my familys needs then what other people earn is irrelivant to my life.

vivalabeaver, thats what I said, sewage workers are often the best paid, rightly so! especially the night shifters

Shelly, yes Marxism paraphrased.
A very old argument but given that it has never been trialled anywhere (Communism is not Marxism) Marxism has never failed.

But I do accept its not to the taste of the majority. Yet in tis thread we have people expressing the idea that some people DESERVE more than others and that is surely equally distasteful?

Marxism will never fail because when it does, lefties will just claim that it wasn't proper marxism. Just like they did with communism, and New Labour.

As a midwife though there are professional consequences to consider than a health care assistant never has to face.
I once had to stand in court because a hca screwed up but because I was nurse in charge on that shift I was responsible.
That's the difference that's why we should be paid more.