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Jazzlike_Breadfruit9 t1_ixmfmqy wrote

Reply to comment by I_TylerDurden in Pittsburgh's largest nonprofit is concerned that its profits are down by thanxhaveagood1

Probably traveling nurses and staff that had to work overtime and get paid 1.5x - 2x normal pay rate.

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I_TylerDurden t1_ixmgavl wrote

I never understood why travelers get such a premium compared to local. Its not like they are more efficient. Good for them just doesnt make sense business wise.

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lurker86753 t1_ixmikui wrote

It’s because they’re contractors with a set contract period. If you raise the wages of your actual employees to get them to stay, then you just have to keep paying those higher wages forever. But if you can fill the gaps with temps by paying through the nose while you wait for things to go back to normal, then once the storm has passed you can let the temps go and keep your regular employees at their lower wages.

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Lil_Phantoms_Lawyer t1_ixmlxqd wrote

Thank you for the accurate economic take on the situation. Refreshing to see.

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universeofdesign t1_ixnzmjy wrote

My ex-wife, a nurse, sees the same situation and blames the union for not being negotiable. Ex-wife.

Her plan is to move out of state and get a job as a traveling nurse, for as long as possible without them realizing that she bought a place in town. Despite the obviously limited nature of that plan's viability, that's as far into the future as she has planned.

What's gonna happen when they realize she lives locally and has a mortgage?

Again, ex-wife.

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LustGumby t1_ixov8i2 wrote

It won't matter. She can live anywhere she wants, get hired anywhere she's able, where her home address is is irrelevant to the places taking on these high dollar contracts.

My mom's been a traveler for over 20 years, often for different UPMC hospitals. They will give her a stipend for rent in the area while a contract is going, let's say for example the stipend is for $2500 a month rent, she will go find herself an apartment for cheaper or a short term rental & pocket any difference. She's from PA so often she's taken stipends & lived at home. These companies are gonna give that money to a different contract regardless, they couldn't care less.

Someone said about using these contracts as a bandaid until "situation gets back to normal," well I agree - it's never going back. Sure, they don't get long term benefits like healthcare etc (unless they stay put with the same recruiter sometimes but that's besides the point), but at $75+ base rate per hour, plus contracted on-call, OT, a meal & housing stipend that's easily manipulated to have a lot of it go right in their pockets & more that I could go on about (for instance, I did my mom's taxes a few years back - she wrote off a new car & gas all year as business expenses & it was approved.) If you can learn to use the system to your advantage & more than make up for what you miss out on in traditional benefits I think most people would disregard other traditionally based workers & how it hurts them & their ability to bargain for better work conditions. People are self serving, not serving of the broader good of the people.

My mom's went 20 plus years without getting a 401k, health benefits, etc - but she goes to the dentist more than anyone I know, has a bigger retirement account than my grandmother who worked in the same factory for 42 years with full benefits, and writes off (I'm assuming bc of the one time...lol) a new vehicle every 3 years or so. I could keep going but I kind of look at it like this -- if youre selfish enough to go to work everyday knowing that everyone you're working with is not only being screwed by you, but also by their company taking you on, go for it - you'll be fine. It's def not for everyone, it's a shady ass game & I didn't even mention how bloodthirsty & manipulating I've seen recruiters to be.

Good luck to your ex-wife but it sounds like she hasn't fully done her research. Long time travelers have jumped thru hoops to work the system to their advantage, jumping in thinking you'll best the system usually doesn't come out well but hey - that's why you stressed the Ex right? 😂

Oh & if you have younger children or a family don't fkn do this travelling shit. Not just bc benefits are nonexistent basically but bc the life it affords will fuck your kids up forever - ask me how I know.

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DugganSC t1_ixqfhva wrote

> Oh & if you have younger children or a family don't fkn do this travelling shit. Not just bc benefits are nonexistent basically but bc the life it affords will fuck your kids up forever - ask me how I know.

In your mother's defense, this used to be the standard for a lot of men back in the day, out most of the week traveling for the company, maybe see the kids on weekends, c.f. the traveling salesman, truckers, or the Wichita Lineman. Admittedly, standards weren't white the same back then in terms of men being expected to have an emotional connection with their children.

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BlackDS t1_ixo9enw wrote

Too bad normal is never coming back

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482Edizu t1_ixoloy6 wrote

Most contract workers get zero benefits from what I’ve seen in the area. No health, time off, retirement, paid holidays, unemployment, etc.. What they’re paying these contract workers is similar to what they’re paying staff with total benefit packages and maybe a 10-15% uplift on the type of position. They gain more because they don’t have to work with unions, and zero commitment to the contract workers. Even if a contract is for two years the majority can be terminated for zero reason and the contract worker gets nothing. As a few have mentioned below if your an established nurse and want to pick up some extra cash it’s a good way to do it.

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TrueCR t1_ixp4312 wrote

Contract worker here, I get health, I get retirement, I dont get holidays so I always volunteer to work them so that doesn't matter (I'd rather have my coworkers get the holidays off anyways since I'm never near my family). Depending on your agency you can get time off (work x amount of hours to get x amount of time off), mine I don't but yeah I would rather just work 6-9 months out the year and take the other 3-6 months off.Also for the termination I have had one contract terminate (My contracts are generally 13 weeks) I had about 4 weeks left on mine and they cut the whole hospital system's contractors. I get paid out 2 weeks still.I've been working as a contractor for about 6 years now because I like the flexibility of working when I want and you know visiting the US while working. I will never go back to working as a permanent employee in my field, if contracts dry up I'll simply transition over to working for medical instrumentation companies.

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482Edizu t1_ixp4fm9 wrote

That’s awesome!!! Do you work here in Pittsburgh? Is the health and retirement benefits competitive? I’ve seen both with a few places. Health was garbage and retirement was just a fund but with no match.

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TrueCR t1_ixp4wd3 wrote

I currently am on a contract in Pittsburgh, lovely city so far.

Since I'm relatively young and healthy I always get a high deductible plan anyways, so I'm not entirely sure if my plan is competitive with other employers.

Company 401k plan is alright, could have a few better options. But the company does give me a 5% match.

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TerribleGramber_Nazi t1_ixmiyen wrote

Likely a free market of supply and demand for traveling nurses.

The pay needs to be enough to incentivize them to migrate.

Believe me, they would pay them the bare minimum they could

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mistie_gish t1_ixmo272 wrote

If they could hire enough locally, they wouldn't need travel nurses.

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bhejda t1_ixmra0x wrote

If they treated and paid "regular" staff well, so many people wouldn't turn into temp contractors.

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zippy_08318 t1_ixnhns2 wrote

It’s quite common for nurses to pick up contract hour’s in addition to their regular gig. My wife has a full time (3 12 hour shifts) gig but works 1-3 shifts per week on contract as well. Virtually all of her friends do similar. The extra money is too good to pass up

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mistie_gish t1_ixn26fa wrote

Totally agree! Also, it's unfair that the people who are able to take advantage of the higher wages being a traveling nurse are more likely to be younger people without kids- NOT that I blame anyone for getting the best deal for themselves! But a lot of people who would love to command a higher rate can't do it because they have responsibilities at home.

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Paranoidexboyfriend t1_ixo1rao wrote

How is that unfair? The whole point is they’re paying a premium for a less than ideal living situation.

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todayilearmed t1_ixo2tgk wrote

Travel nurses get way worse assignments, get pulled to other units before regular staff does, and don’t get the benefits regular employees get. It’s not unfair..but what is unfair is nursing wages as a whole for the past century

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pittbiomed t1_ixmu2xv wrote

This is a US whole nursing issue , this isn’t a local issue in any way

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Amrun90 t1_ixns73a wrote

They have been through all the local staff, treated them like trash, and worked them into the ground until they left.

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TerribleGramber_Nazi t1_ixmr2tb wrote

Very true! I assume it has to do with workforce elasticity.

If there are people with specialized skills that takes years of education and certification are in the area and aren’t employed then they will move to an area that will employ them. Creating an equilibrium of sorts.

If there is a strong fluctuation in work demand over a short period then the workforce won’t magically appear locally and incentives are required to import labor.

On the other side of elasticity, as demand shrinks, many positions will no longer need to be filled.

Local positions of lower value probably have a higher priority to the hospital over higher costing travel workers.

So the hospitals/employers need to pay for relocation, the inconvenience of upending your current living situation, the risk of job security, etc. Not sure how much thats worth to you and everyone’s situation is different with family etc.

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jangoblamba t1_ixmsr6u wrote

Annecdotal, but I have a few friends that have recently quit from UPMC nursing to do travel nursing contracts because the pay is so drastically better than what UPMC offers them. They know that they can artificially create this kind of travel nursing need by just not being apart of the main systems. Also, UPMC just changed it's requirements for nurses to be on full-time payroll, from 30 shifts a year to 8 hrs minimum per week, which removed a lot of the flexibility of being apart of their program. That was the straw that broke my friend's backs with staying there; they weren't willing to be paid poorly on a weekly basis compared to their travel nursing contracts. Again, this is just what I've heard from a few nurses within their system, but they say a lot of the complaints they have are pretty ubiquitous.

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TerribleGramber_Nazi t1_ixmtsvv wrote

Super interesting insight. Thank you for sharing.

Free markets will do what they will and people will take the best options available for themselves/family. Things take time for sudden changes to settle and efficiency to be met

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jangoblamba t1_ixmve87 wrote

Yea, although I do hope that in UPMC's case some sort of gov't red tape starts pushing them to do the right thing for their employees. It's obvious that UPMC is willing to work against their employees to make more money and to increase their rate of geographical monopolization, and they seem to have created a scenario where they have no bigger incentives to change. I'm usually not down with more red tape, but when UPMC is doing such blatant and oblivious things and not changing, it's up to anything else to kickstart that change

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Edmeyers01 t1_ixnb108 wrote

People working at UPMC need to keep the pressure for raises up. Most of the people I know that work there sit there for years and years and just complain about it. The only way is to leave and then come back and negotiate higher pay.

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jangoblamba t1_ixndw4m wrote

I don't think leaving and coming back is a healthy way to negotiate higher wages. It's definitely a strategy, but UPMC should be competitive by just being good at offering good wages. I'm a server that makes as much as UPMC nurses. That's kinda pathetic on UPMC's part

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Edmeyers01 t1_ixpbi24 wrote

I agree with your hypothetical, but unfortunately UPMC has a borderline successful monopoly in Pittsburgh. That takes away any healthy options. This advice worked for me and landed me 3x what I was getting paid previously by UPMC for my old analyst job. It’s awesome that they are feeling the pressures of the labor shortage, but it is going to take a whole lot more than that for them to change their ways. At the individual level, today, your best option is to leave and come back

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First-Hour t1_ixolj63 wrote

I like to be transparent. I left my job to do travel nursing. Did local travel in Pittsburgh. Pay jumped from $30 an hour to $70-90.

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jangoblamba t1_ixonvnd wrote

That's about the same jump they experienced, so I'd say you're on the ball with that

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pittbiomed t1_ixmtxdc wrote

You stating you have friends that have done x is the definition of anecdotal .you do realize that right?

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jangoblamba t1_ixmul7m wrote

You do realize the space comes after the period, not before, right? And that the word after a full stop is capitalized?

Yes, I do, by stating that first, I'm providing a gentle reminder to take what I have to say with a grain of salt. That's all.

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pittbiomed t1_ixnsfcj wrote

Of course , with no response to a fact someone attacks the structure or spelling of things. Lol , I get it . I guess you do not know the definition of anecdotal , but that’s ok, we all can see what weapons you use in your arguments.

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jangoblamba t1_ixnvesy wrote

complains about the subjective use of a word

Cannot perform the basics of English grammatical structure

Bitches anyway

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pittbiomed t1_ixo0lrb wrote

Lol as I said too funny that’s all you have to say lol

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steeerrrfff t1_ixn06ft wrote

Correction: they do pay them the minimum they can.

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DaleGribble312 t1_ixmx64n wrote

Who are all these people paying people.more than the minimum they can? I'd like some extra money

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quittsbuggy t1_ixmnciu wrote

It also makes sense from an anti-union point of view. Nurses who leave to travel make the union weaker.

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jangoblamba t1_ixmt7jo wrote

The unions also make the nurse's salaries weaker. AHN's nurses union just helped get the nurses an increase in wages, but raised their union dues because of the work they did to get the wage increase, and the union due hike actually is more expensive than the wage increase. It just seems like at least the nurse's unions in Pittsburgh aren't the best at advocating for nurse's wages

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Amrun90 t1_ixnskxh wrote

There’s only one Union in Pittsburgh, not plural. Only AGH nurses get a Union.

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jangoblamba t1_ixnvhk9 wrote

Good to know! Appreciate that fact, never knew that

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Amrun90 t1_ixns1qm wrote

You don’t really understand the market. They’re staffing hellholes no one wants to work at (ie most of UPMC), but it’s actually much cheaper for facilities and they prefer it. No onboarding, no benefits, short term commitments. The love it.

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