Pay for MTs sm
Posted By: IMHO on 2008-04-02
In Reply to:
I noticed a post below about the low pay in this industry and I'd like to comment, but up a different alley.
My first MT job 11 yrs ago, I started at 5.5 cents, got to 6 in a couple of days and was then given 7 after a month because my work was good. I had a couple of other jobs that weren't too hot, but my first big MT job was great. I got 9 cents for it. I didn't make more than 125 lph, so while the rate was good, my hourly was terrible.
I had a job paying by the byte line in WP5.1 and was paid 6.5 and got a raise to 7. I got another raise about 2 yrs later and got 7.5. I was there for 7 years in all. I made good money, but you know bytes are not the same as characters. By the time I quit, most companies had gone to Word and character lines. I took a real hit with that.
It took 6 yrs from the first 9 cpl job to find another one close. I took 8.5 to do OP notes for a surgical center. I got a raise to 9 after a year and could not squeeze one more dime out of them. I made good enough money.
Recently, the above job sort of dried up because of a supervisor and her issues so I had to find something better. I settled for 8.5 cent a line. I knew that there were incentives, but between my hiring on and starting, I lost track of this. Turns out for the number of lines I generally transcribe, I can have 9.25 cents a line, a QA bonus and other incentives/bonuses. On my last check, those bonuses were worth $150, not including my shift differentials.
Pay still isn't stellar because we KNOW we should be making nearly double what we do and that isn't going to happen. I do think that having incentives for lines, QA rates, working odd hours and weekends and something extra in your pay packet for going above and beyond the call of duty is important to our job satisfaction. NOTHING has chapped my hiney more than finding out I am paid the same or less than someone with half my experience and less than a quarter of my knowledge, and that there is no appreciation for the fact that I can transcribe 4 times the number of lines of someone with half my experience and less knowledge.
If we can't be paid more a line, being paid more for doing more, being paid for working to avoid jobs to QA (translate this to knowing your stuff so well you don't spend most of your day researching), and having acknowledgement for working when you are scheduled off goes some way in correcting the problem. It means that those with experience and speed WILL make more money. A lower base rate is fine, as long as there are ways to make more and we are in control of how we do that.
The problem is that these low paying companies have high expectations. We end up being treated as slave labor, a simple typing robot with nothing to do, but sit and translate gunk into readable, ultra correct, legal copy. There is NO acknowledgement of skill or care on our part, just DO THE WORK and if you want more money, work more.
We need a union, or at least a professional organization whose first concern is making this industry a vigorous one, once again. I know what you are thinking...the AAMT or whatever foul name they are using this week doesn't give a plug nickel about the American MT.
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