One last small thought by me in regards to this matter. I've been in this business most of the time since 1984. I've been an employee installer for a contractor (how I started), an independent contractor, a subcontractor, and a prime for several major MSO's before I got out for a while.
It breaks down to simple supply and demand. There are far fewer MSO's now and almost no mom and pop Cable systems anymore. From the installers perspective, hey, I'm just am not going to work for less then $1200.00 a week potential and $2000.00 a week would be my goal, and here's why. An installer is a self employed business person (unless your an employee with furnished truck, etc.) that has ALL of the normal business expenses of any business person and to top that you have three (3) clients to please (customer, contracting Co., and Cable Co.) on each and every job. Talk about pressure! With piece rate pay (the only way I'd normally work) you are always trying to do as much work as you can in a finite amount of time to, of course, make the most money. With MSO's trying to get more and more out of the installers for each of their visits to a subscribers dwelling or workplace, for the same or (gasp) less payout, many, if not most good installers have left installs for other more lucrative areas of cable, or left cable all together. Let's see... how did this happen? Well, you know, it migrated from installing cable and explaining how their TV worked, to freebies like hooking up the VCR, DVD, to Surround sound systems, game players, security TV systems, wall fishes, sidewalk bores, washing their car, walking the dog and rocking the baby to sleep (well you get the idea) all the while with constant technological advances on the install side of the industry that always seemed to make the install take longer. Of course it was all in the interest of good PR and to make the Cable system better, right? But the pay scale never translated that over to the installers. The Cable MSO's were and are getting better installs due to advances in the industry and better install procedure (that takes much longer), but don't want to pay for it. Why? Because they don't have too. If a Prime can't get their crew to work for the money offered by the MSO then the MSO will just go with one of the many other contractors beating a path to their door, every week, full of promises of dozens of clean cut, competent, polyester uniform clad installers, with nary even a traffic violation and shiny new $30,000.00 vehicles, $4,000.00 meters, and $5 million dollar insurance policies waiting at the local coffee shop for orders to move on in at a moments notice so they can happily work 6 and 7 days a week to make $600.00 gross! Of course they can't deliver that, but it doesn't stop promises, does it? As an installer, why would I want to work for $700.00 a week when I can make $1500.00 or more? I won't, it's that simple.
Another thing that has hurt installers pay and driven down what MSO's are willing to pay Primes is when installers have a phenomenal week and then brag about it in front of the ears of MSO employees. They're not stopping to think that $1400.00 gross might translate to $900.00 after expenses and it took 83 hours to earn. All they hear is $1400.00 and quantify that to their pay and 40 hours of work. This gets discussed at the twice daily meetings that most MSO's seem to have and the conclusion is that “contractors” (as installers are derogatorily referred to by MSO in house people) are overpaid!
Pay Scale Time line for good installers
Year $ made in "good" week Cost of new Van (Est.)
1978 $1000.00 $5000.00
1985 $1000.00 $8000.00
1995 $1000.00 $15000.00
2005 $1000.00 $25000.00
I don't even want to talk about gasoline, insurance, meters, etc, etc.
Sorry, just the facts!
