Do you feel appropriately paid for your work?

[shivawn]

Do you feel that your wages fairly reflect your skills and labour?

I'm just curious how people generally feel after chatting with my own colleagues a few days ago. They were complaining that we're underpaid and that they will struggle to live on these wages as they get older and want to start families etc. We're all nurses on a public payscale so on the same or similar pay (working in Ireland where nurses are better paid than in the UK). I felt really surprised as I consider myself well paid for doing a job that I love, probably more than many of my friends in other professions.

Are you happy with your wage in relation to what you contribute to your employer or do you think you're worth more?

@Iamthewombat no, I mean I was called, pursued a couple of times as I did turn it down originally, then interviewed (because I was intrigued on our second conversation) and offered the job but on reflection of my career path and speaking to a mentor I turned it down. If I was approached by a recruiter to apply for a job I would have said that, gosh what an arrogant person you are, how miserable and resentful you sound.

gosh what an arrogant person you are, how miserable and resentful you sound.

Here come the insults. A sure sign that somebody is on the ropes.

Touched a nerve, did I? Your poor bruised ego.

@Iamthewombat

To add, nursery fees and care is subsidised for some, should some continue to get it for free whilst others pay more than they do already, or is there a better way that makes it fairer for all? Keen to hear your ideas.

So now it’s my job to reform nursery funding? I don’t think so. You have made your position clear: you think that nursery staff are underpaid and you’d love them to be paid more, provided that it doesn’t cost you, the user of the services, a penny extra.

A lot of parents wouldn't be able to afford to pay anymore, despite the best will in the world. So those who cannot afford it leave their jobs, stay at home, and it becomes only accessible for those who are earning above average salaries. Ironically, those who do that would then be entitled to free hours at 2 years old (dependent on the partners wage), and be on UC. What do you think costs more to the taxpayer? Some sort of financial input into nurseries as most governments do, or forcing many people (mainly women) out of the workplace?

@Iamthewombat it takes a bit more than someone on mumsnet ignorantly making assumptions about me to touch a nerve, I just find it fascinating how frustrated you sound and can't assume anything but misery, the arrogance was just factual, not intending to be an insult. You're making huge generalisations and assumptions with ugly certainty based on your own limited knowledge.

I just find it fascinating how frustrated you sound and can't assume anything but misery

You are hilarious. You don’t know the first thing about me. Apart from the fact I argue better than you, which must be frustrating.

Do you regularly tell friends and colleagues about your experience of being ‘headhunted’? I bet you do. Most of them will be laughing up their sleeves.

A lot of parents wouldn't be able to afford to pay anymore, despite the best will in the world

Then own that viewpoint and stop the crocodile tears over low pay for nursery staff, since you have no intention of doing anything about it: it suits you that they are low paid.

@Iamthewombat you argue better than me? You haven't even made an argument to refute what I've said, you made assumptions that were wrong and when called out on them being wrong either ignored the point or now trying to make it personal saying I show off about it, what did you say about throwing insults? That a nerve has been touched?

You’re embarrassing yourself now. I’d leave it.

Ditto care homes: the irony of people moaning that it’s not fair that mum’s house should be sold to pay for long term care or, worse, scheming to avoid payment. You can’t argue, effectively, that care should be free then wrong your hands over low pay for care staff. It doesn’t add up.

But, that then leads to people being put at risk, because they don't want to pay at all, never mind more, so care that needs to be paid for is put off and put off until something really dangerous happens and the hand is forced because competency and best interests come into play. Increasing fees would compound that imo. I think the answer, and it's very simplistic, is to cap profit that can be made annually from care. A % of the income. Then anything else above that must be ploughed back into the home, food, training, staff etc. It would put a stop to money saving, corner cutting schemes. But it will never happen.
The basic problem is that care is not valued very highly, the people recieving the care, and the workers don't have a voice, they're not listened to.
You have programmes like panorama investigating poor care, and society goes nuts for a couple of weeks, promises are made and ultimately the people at the top blame the staff on the floor, say lessons have been learned, people have been sacked and it all goes back to the way it was and quiet until next time.

As for childcare, I can only speak to my own experiences, however it's not that I didn't want to pay more, it was due to my own low wage, I couldn't.

oh yes excellent argument skills wombat, you're as good as you say.

I am on carers allowance. less than £1/h. no sick pay, no holiday no pension. Go figure.

But, that then leads to people being put at risk, because they don't want to pay at all, never mind more, so care that needs to be paid for is put off and put off until something really dangerous happens and the hand is forced

If people don’t want to pay for long term care at all, surely it’s already a risk?

We all know that most people think that long term care should be free, and want to hand on their houses and savings to their family untouched. Those same people cannot make sympathetic noises about the low pay of care staff. They have already asserted, indirectly, that the labour of those people should be free, or at least paid for by somebody else.

I think the answer, and it's very simplistic, is to cap profit that can be made annually from care. A % of the income.

How is that going to work in practice? You can’t run a business like that.

Say you have a calendar year end, and in November you forecast that your profit before tax for the year will be 2% above the permitted level. What do you do? Pay all the staff a Christmas bonus? What happens if trading in December is bad, so that you end up at 3% below the permitted level? Do you take it back again?

Care homes are not particularly profitable in any event. If permitted profits are capped, where are entrepreneurs and investors going to put their money? Not into care homes. Nobody would buy shares in care groups if potential future returns were restricted.

Unfortunately we have to accept that if care staff are to be paid more, the service users must pay more.

I think I get paid more than what my job is worth to be honest, about £300 a day for a creative role, but it's London and many get so much more.

I thought my wage was okay until I made the mistake of looking at other public sector pay scales and then a red mist descended!

@Iamthewombat

A lot of parents wouldn't be able to afford to pay anymore, despite the best will in the world

Then own that viewpoint and stop the crocodile tears over low pay for nursery staff, since you have no intention of doing anything about it: it suits you that they are low paid.

I'll happily own that me and DH cannot afford to pay more than the equivalent of a minimum wage salary for childcare. That doesn't mean I don't think that there should be more financial support from the government, as nearly every other country has. Just because we pay for a service, doesn't mean we cannot be frustrated or feel that the staff should be paid more. Anyway, you're just being goady seen as though you don't have any real argument/useful insight/ideas.

A big problem with nurseries is actually the existing government funding. They contribute a pitiful amount per child to make up the “free” hours. Increasing this would go a long way to enabling fairer wages for nursery staff.

(And I don’t want to hear about “how would they fund it. If they can pull £33M out of their arse to pay a ferry company without any ferries; and ££££ to pay their mates “facilitation fees” for PPE procurement, they can spare some for this.)

How is that going to work in practice? You can’t run a business like that.

And that in itself, is the problem in a nutshell. Care shouldn't be business based, it should be people based.
While profit is the bottom line, then the people recieving the care (and by default the workers in the industry) come a poor second. That goes for any type of care, NHS, elderly care, adult care, all of it.

Currently people like myself are expected to deliver person centred care, within a framework of a profit centred business. Society demands person centred care, but you can only deliver that so far when profit is the main motivation behind running the service in the first place.

I don't pretend to know what the answer is, it's complex and would be incredibly hard to change. But I don't think that people paying to be cared for (which includes the tax payer for those who can't self fund) should be seeing what they pay going into swelling private companies profit margins, while the staff delivering the care are subsidised by the way of tax credits or UC to have a livable income, at more cost to the public purse, and the people paying receive a substandard service.
My personal view is that the money should be used for delivering the best care possible, and the best way to do that is invest in staff.

There's only one winner in care, and it's certainly not the service users or the staff.

The situation in care is already dangerous. I work in an independent living facility and we have residents who require nursing care but the family won't move them because nursing care is significantly more expensive.

The living situation of these residents is cruel.

We don't need to cap care home profits. That will close down many for profit homes and make things worse. We need to scrap the idea that we are entitled to hoarde our wealth or our parents wealth but also entitled to have someone else provide elderly care for our loved ones.

Either pay or give care to your own loved ones. It can be both ways. It doesn't work.

there should be more financial support from the government, as nearly every other country has

You’ll be paying Scandinavian or German levels of income tax without a complaint, then? How about paying for health insurance on top?

Just because we pay for a service, doesn't mean we cannot be frustrated or feel that the staff should be paid more.

This isn’t a logical argument. If a retailer couldn’t pay its staff much, because the prices it charged were too low, the answer is simple: raise the prices. It would be strange if the customers complained bitterly about the low wages paid to the staff then refused to pay higher prices. It would show that they didn’t really care that much about the staff wages after all.

Anyway, you're just being goady seen as though you don't have any real argument/useful insight/ideas.

I do have a real argument: a conclusive one. You don’t like it much. That doesn’t make it less persuasive. I’ll repeat it if you like:

Don’t wring your hands over the low salaries paid to nursery staff if you’re not prepared to pay more for nursery care. You have the power to change nursery care salaries, but you won’t use it. You and many other parents won’t pay any more for nursery care, so the operators have no choice but to keep fees, and salaries, low.

I’m not sure how anybody can claim to know about the career prospects and pension of all public or private sector employees. I didn’t even know that public sector pensions varied so much, I don’t really know about employment prospects away from my own profession..
not all occupations are professions, but entry requirements, availability of staff and amount of time and money spent training make a big difference to pay in many cases. I think carers are underpaid but at the end of the day administering a controlled drug does not involve the training or legal or personal responsibility for diagnosing and assessing the patient in the way that a nurse prescribing it does.

I chose the most expensive nursery as it was the nicest. I wouldn’t know what they pay their staff but retention was good and they were supported to do further study. However paying more to a profit making business doesn’t guarantee that they pay their staff more!

@Wanderlust20

And yes, feel guilty too like someone else said! What I do isn't as meaningful as teachers, doctors, nurses etc.

I will very happily relieve you of this guilt.

Absolutely.

I work for the NHS in mental health. I’m paid a heck of a lot more than I’d get doing anything else within my grasp and more than the majority of my social circle. Love my job, love my employer. I don’t do this just for the money but it sure helps!

I’ve worked for the NHS for approx five years and always felt well paid for the role, even when I was a band four starting on £18k. It’s a matter of perspective I think, where I’m from if you manage to earn £25k you’ve done very well for yourself indeed and £40k is the kind of money nobody really earns. MN may scoff at that amount as in my experience people here say they earn a lot more than that but to me it’s honestly mega bucks and I’ve never been able to get on board with the whole ‘badly paid NHS’ thing. My team largely feel the same as me (band fours to sevens), that we are paid really fairly for what we do

@Frequency

I kind of agree, but then what about those who can't afford to pay for the care? LA's will need to significantly increase their payments, fees increase for self funders and then the income increases, we'd then need some sort of guarantee that the extra accrued would go towards the care of the people it's paying for (better staffing and training and wages) not into profits.
I'm not saying people shouldn't pay if they're able, I'm saying that it's one part of it, the fact it's a profit making business, with no onus on anyone except paying nmw, means the fees and payments can increase - and end up in profit rather than to staff.
That's why I think some sort of cap would help. It's greed on both sides causing this.