Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22:12, you are missing the point. A nanny is not "losing a couple thousand dollars a year in employer vacatino time, early dismissals, grandparent visits, etc." unless you assume that she should be getting paid for work that she does not do, which is not a reasonable assumption unless a certain number of days of paid time off is priced into the hourly rate, just as it is priced into a professional's salary.

It is true that salaried employees have guaranteed minimum hours, meaning that we get paid for a full week whether we work it or not. But we don't get paid for hours we work over and above a standard week. In other words, we don't have a "separate hourly rate" when we have to work overtime to make up for our salaried time off. You do, and the cost of that benefit is either schedule shifting in lieu of guaranteed hours, or a lower rate to offset the "separate hourly rate" we have to pay you for hours over and above your usual week.

Yeah but you're choosing to take a week off knowing fully well that you will have extra work. Nanny is not. She doesn't choose to be off a week, her employer does. I understand the rest of what you're saying though.

A nanny is not "losing a couple thousand dollars a year in employer vacatino time, early dismissals, grandparent visits, etc." unless you assume that she should be getting paid for work that she does not do,

Anonymous wrote:

Slavery-poster, you are correct, nannies are not slaves. So we don't need to bring it up any more, k? We all understand what you're saying, but it is hugely disrespectful to everyone who has endured or is enduring the experience of slavery to suggest that an employer who takes advantage of a naive nanny is the same as a slave owner. Neither is a good person, clearly, but I think we should be able to agree that there is a distinct difference between the two.

+1

back to topic - OP, you have a problem because these are all issues you should have negotiated up front. You are now trying to renegotiate on the fly. As an MB I would be really pissed at hiring someone on X terms only to have her keep renegotiating them only a few months in. It shows really bad faith and would make me feel scammed. (FWIW, my nanny does have guaranteed hours - for a specific hr range 5 days a week; vacation, holidays and sick leave paid so I'm not arguing that those benefits aren't good.) I would wait to 6 months and request a formal sit-down. You need to be apologetic for not bringing this stuff up when you negotiated at the get-go, but you can be honest that it is becoming an issue and you need a way to regularize your pay. MB may counter that she needs to pay you a lower rate per hour. That is not unreasonable and you need to be ready to be OK with that if your real priority is guaranteed hours - you are asking for a better compensation package than the one they offered you when they hired you. It does not automaticlaly fall to them to improve it just because you did not raise these issues when you were hired.

Anonymous wrote:22:12, you are missing the point. A nanny is not "losing a couple thousand dollars a year in employer vacatino time, early dismissals, grandparent visits, etc." unless you assume that she should be getting paid for work that she does not do, which is not a reasonable assumption unless a certain number of days of paid time off is priced into the hourly rate, just as it is priced into a professional's salary.

It is true that salaried employees have guaranteed minimum hours, meaning that we get paid for a full week whether we work it or not. But we don't get paid for hours we work over and above a standard week. In other words, we don't have a "separate hourly rate" when we have to work overtime to make up for our salaried time off. You do, and the cost of that benefit is either schedule shifting in lieu of guaranteed hours, or a lower rate to offset the "separate hourly rate" we have to pay you for hours over and above your usual week.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, these issues need to be addressed ASAP. Set a meeting time, and have your draft agreement ready, with an extra copy for them. There is no good reason to ignore these important matters. Slavery is outlawed in the US. As soon as you determine that you are ready to be treated like an adult human being, these people will treat you like one.
If it would give you more confidence, you can start looking at other job options.

To the poster who always defaults to the "slavery is outlawed, nannies are not slaves" position: Your comments are incredibly ignorant and insensitive. Slaves are property with no freedom to chose how they spend their days. Nannies are free to take and leave jobs as they please. Slaves do not get paid. Nannies may feel underpaid, but their wages are in fact driven by a free market. Show a little respect for yourself.

Change everything to present tense and I'll give a +1000000.

There are modern-day slaves, even here in the US. They come over on the promise of work and are forced to surrender their passports and wages to their "employer," trapped in a cycle of servitude and abuse. Some of them may even be performing childcare - others housework, manual labor, or farm work.

Slavery-poster, you are correct, nannies are not slaves. So we don't need to bring it up any more, k? We all understand what you're saying, but it is hugely disrespectful to everyone who has endured or is enduring the experience of slavery to suggest that an employer who takes advantage of a naive nanny is the same as a slave owner. Neither is a good person, clearly, but I think we should be able to agree that there is a distinct difference between the two.