The Legislature Must Address the Disparity in Pay Between Travel Nurses and Staff Nurses By Pat Kane, RN In 2021, NYSNA nurses advocated for themselves and their patients by warning hospital administrators of the perils of relying on travel nurses. First, they note that hiring nurses who live in the communities where they work offers a level of proximity that is comforting and beneficial for patients and healthcare workers alike. Next, paying travel nurses significantly more than staff nurses is demoralizing and may spur more resignations. Finally, the ballooning costs of travel nurses will ultimately catch up with employers, potentially placing them on rocky financial footing. As of December 2020, there were more than 25,000 travel nurses working during the pandemic. Certainly, travel nursing existed before the pandemic, but hospital administrators greatly increased their presence during the COVID-19 health crisis. While some may note that travel nurses stepped in when staff nurses were unable to do so, but this framing is a recasting of facts. Staff nurses love their communities and patients, and have done their best to serve them, even placing their and their family’s lives in jeopardy to do so. The truth is that systems have intentionally engaged travel nurses as a way to break the union. This is not about administrators being forced into hiring travel nurses; this has been a strategic effort. Moreover, anyone who believes in equal pay for equal work should not accept the exorbitant fees paid to travel nurses. The gap between what staff nurses earn and what agency nurses earn is great. Hospitals often offer major incentives to the later. For instance, days after Northwell Health in Staten Island settled a new collective bargaining agreement with nurses employed with them, the
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NYSNA members rally for safe staffing.
hospital began offering agency nurses $150 per hour. In some New York City hospitals, agency nurses were offered to be paid 12 hours for eight hours worked and 16 hours for 12 hours worked. Administrators cannot hail nurses as heroes one moment and then underpay them in another moment.
A Band-Aid Sonia Lawrence, a NYSNA board member and critical care nurse at Lincoln Hospital in the Bronx, explained it this way: “Travel nurses are a temporary solution to an ongoing problem. Travel nurses are not held to the same standards as H+H nurses. Yet they earn much more for less work. At the end of the day, accountability rests with us; H+H nurses. Travel nurses are
not obligated to understand our patients and the communities we serve. We are.” While administrators may point to a nursing shortage or the COVID-19 pandemic as the rationale for relying on contract nurses, this only tells part of the story. With an aging workforce, hospital systems could have forecasted and addressed shortages. But too many of them rely on a “just in time” ethos, promising to provide what is needed just in time. But “just in time” is too late during times of crisis. If hospital systems want to address nursing shortages, they should start by hiring more staff, paying them a fair wage, investing in mental healthcare for employees, and addressing COVID-19 related trauma. 2021: We are one
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