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. .

OP You're a well educated highly trained professional, yet you can't see the comparison you're making Is ridiculous, how long did you think about it before posting?

Can I just say re binmen wages. I've worked in hr for a few la's now. Binmens wages have been no where near 30-45 grand!

All councils have had to go through national job evaluation (nje) which is a process for deciding what your job worth in terms of pay. 30-45 would be management roles with budgetary responsibility.

They may earn more if they work loads and loads of overtime.

On the op, its just a fact that some jobs are paid more than others. Bankers can earn millions whereas a children's nurse never would. It's never going to change. I'd love a really top paying job but hey ho!

My window cleaner gets paid £15 for the house - that takes him about 25 minutes. I don't care coz I don't have to do it.

My mums a senior nurse in a very busy A&E department & my hourly rate is more than hers which I find shocking! However I am self employed, no sick pay, no paid holidays etc. But she does a bloody hard job and does deserve to earn more.

Also to put it in perspective my sister worked at a nursery. She had to be qualified and trained in 3 types of children's 1st aid, do allergy courses & learn how to administer an epi-pen etc - almost all of which were un-paid. Parents evening she had to do un-paid, nursery events fetes, charity days etc un-paid. She looked after 2 year olds between 7am-7pm every day & she earnt at the time £5.28 hour. Which was minimum wage.

I know it's not a nurse but the shocking lack of pay when the nurseries charge so much for child care is awful!

It sounds like you're on quite a good wage to me. The window cleaner, as other posters have pointed out, has other costs such as travel time, materials etc.

i ll bet the window cleaner says far less tax than you

Well, I think nurses and midwives should be well paid but I think it's very odd to make a comparison with a window cleaner. I know I'm just repeating what everyone else has said, but a window cleaner doesn't get a pension, doesn't get five weeks' paid leave, doesn't get sick leave and has no job security.

In a capitalist society, financial reward isn't directly related to hard work or the importance of the job. For nurses, midwives and other health professionals to be paid more, you'd need a political party prepared to raise taxes. How many people are going to vote for a party who pledges to increase everyone's taxes so that midwives can be better paid? I probably would, but I don't suppose many others would.

I think the OP's comparison does raise a valid point that we live in a society where the act of caring/looking after others has very low capital 'value', but conversely we reward enterprise and aggressive financial risk-taking. I think a lot of it has to do with work that was traditionally done by women (child care, midwifery) having never been allowed to have a proper value in the economy once it stopped being done for free.

Inthepotty

That's awful - I agree your DH was very restrained!

our window cleaner is a fiver for the whole place.my mum only pays 7 pounds for a three storey house.

The trouble with the opening poster is that she is cosseted and probably has no idea what it is to be self-employed.

Window cleaner? FFS . If you want to get people onside, choose a premier league footballer.

And, yeah, some people do value window cleaners above midwives. Get over it. Just like they're quite happy for their 'soma' of football to have players on a massive-by anybody's standards- incomes per week.

I also think the 'well-educated' bit as regards midwives is debatable. Most nurses aren't that bright.

One of the reasons tube drivers get well paid - sheer number of suicides and what it does to drivers if they are involved

Reason window cleaners get 'high' pay - self employed and work at heights

Reason binmen get paid reasonably well for unskilled work - risk of dealing with waste and because its an unpleasant job.

People tend to get paid extra for risk/responsibility/jobs other people don't want to do. Regardless of whether its skilled or not. Which tbh should be the case.

Worth to society is a hell of a lot more than just healthcare etc. I do get sick of the frankly snobby entitlement that comes far too often from the profession.

Essential services covers a very wide range of things, some a lot less obvious and frontline than you think. All as valuable to the efficient running of the country. There really shouldn't be a hierarchy. It just pisses people off and doesn't make anyone want to reward them anymore for their efforts in the workplace.

bakingaddict, band 7 jobs aren't that common where I work (north west), therefore most exepreinced midwives get stuck at top of band 6, no matter how much experience they have. Many band 7 jobs also insist on full time hours, so lots of expereinced midwives with other family commitments, be that young children, older parents or other caring responsibilities, are unable to apply.

With regards to the OP, I agree with Lisaro.

There are also a whole swathe of people earning more than midwives, why are you singling out window cleaners? Did yours leave smears?

I find some of the disparaging attitude to bin men pretty off too, they provide a vital service, and have to deal with all kinds of filth, extremely unsociable hours and hazards such as human waste. Why shouldn't they be paid decently?

My uncle was a bin man and didn't get paid anywhere near what is quoted here. He took the job because it was there. He has worked his way up and now earns about what is quoted. No longer a bin man but, a manager of a team of people. He also spend 3/4 nights a week on call, for that wage.

sancer do you that as a fact?
As tax is proportionate I bet he is paying what he should. Do you assume all self employed people tax dodge?

Band 7 jobs aren't that common anywhere curly, most hospitals now prefer to freeze jobs at band 6-7 and employ Band 4's to do the bulk of the work, certainly happens in most of the hospitals i've worked but the point is that as a midwife or other HCP you have potential earnings.

If you start out as a Band 5 you can get to the top of Band 8 which is in excess of 50K. Other things i've mentioned previously such as extra shifts and out of hours work used to bump up salaries quite significantly. In the good old days, I once worked a Sunday and claimed over £250 for this due to the payment structures in place at that time

Whether you choose to work part-time because of family committments or whatever isn't the point, it is possible to earn more than £18ph, whether you choose to is up to you and circumstances. But the window cleaner has no more significant earnings potential other than the 18ph quoted

shecot aside from your incorrect assumption that midwives are the same as nurses - they aren't, that's like calling an electrician a plumber just because they are both tradesmen - what else would you call a degree only profession other than well educated?

Not every degree requires the same:
a, Depth of intellectual endeavour.

b, Has the same worth.

Unless you're seriously trying to tell me that a double first in Physics from Cambridge is the same as a 2:2 in nursing from a polytechnic cum university.

That's another mistake they made: making nursing and midwifery degree courses-no wonder they are now getting so uppity about more pay.

Having worked fucking hard for a degree in midwifery, whilst working on the wards full time and having to juggle a homelife with children I can confidently say it was a damn sight more difficult than my law degree. From a RG university. But you know. Whatever.

I mean this uppitiness plus ignorance is quite evident from the opening post: the opening poster has not got the slightest clue about how self-employment operates.

So ignorance + self-entitlement as regards how 'educated' midwives/nurses are is a recipe for petulant 'why should I do that, I've a degree (yeah, yeah, course you have, it's not been dumbed down in any way, course not) is why I am absolutely dreading getting ill and having NHS treatment

BenedictsCumnberbitch, yeah but you see you had to juggle a home life with children, which is not the same conditions as you did your law degree.
Think somebody from a Russell Group university would know that.

If your self employed no you don't get holiday pay etc, however you can claim back expenses.

Wow, Shecot, those are pretty horrible posts. The OP said she saved a life this week. Shouldn't we as a society place some value on that? Midwives work hard, they do a valuable job - why shouldn't they earn a decent salary?

Should imagine that a self-employed person has to hire an accountant somewhere along the way, Moominsarescary?