Trey,
I understand that the hours are getting long, remember, my Husband is out there traveling from commercial job to job. He is not a SAT/CATV installer but does some work we would recognize as being similar to ours. To answer your question on the Union guys thinking less of us, you are absolutely correct!!!!
Now, if I go head to head with the Union when I am bidding, I take into account that I will have to pay my Men prevailing wage...and I assure you, I am not a low baller, I have never needed to be one and if asked to lower my bid, I would decline the work, but thats just me. I value what we do.
On the subject of being scammed, I was directing that towards you personally, and not the working class installer or any Union. What concerns me about you, Trey, is your unwillingness to tell us who you are, and all of the literature you post, that you have taken so much time and care in gathering to gain acceptance of your ideas, the fact that you are very new to our industry, and too me, it looks like you may be a union recruiter, or at least have some sort ulterior motive. I write my name here, and trust me, my clients see me posting all of this stuff, so do yours. Perhaps they disagree, or wonder, what is wrong with Kim, but they can call me, write me, or whatever and ask and I will explain my reason. If I make them uncomfortable, I would ease up, or stop. But I want to get the point across that I am not necessarily targeting the group as a whole, I am singling you out and wanting to know where all of this is coming from. As I stated before, I am usually a very well mannered and easy to get along with Girl, until, I smell smoke, then I do whatever I can to stomp out the flames before anyone gets burned.
I would love nothing more than for everyone to feel they are treated fairly and paid accordingly, but the truth is, you cant please everyone. I feel that the reason, we are seeing a difference between how we work and are paid now, and how it used to be, is that we have kind of earned a reputation as not being the most scrupulous of businessmen thanks to the countless amounts of fly-by-night shady characters who have come in and out of the business under new names, reaping havoc on the innocent guy who is just trying to earn a living. The shady contractors of out industry, also cost the customer a lot of money, heres how:
Joe Construction Manager at some MSO has to make a budget every year along with a wish list of tools, training for his men etc. The company tells Joe, that they plan to upgrade the plant to whatever or add whatever service and to seek out contractors bids. So he gets a few he knows together and a few he doesn't but who have been courting him and each sends his proposal, one proposal is accepted, and then Joe writes a requisition for that amount, the contractor gets the PO and they are off to do the job. Well, Joe sends his QC guys out to check on them, and low and behold, 4 ex-cons, who are half lit, are haphazardly throwing together some plant, and Joe's QC guys run back to the office and tell everyone. Well Joe, is really upset now, because he has very little budget money if any left to hire another contractor to come out and fix it. Joe is dreading having to go to his boss and his bosses Boss and tell them he needs more money. Where are they going to get it? They are going to have to make some cuts, trim the fat if you will. Joe has to give up somethings they really needed to bail himself out. Over time, this gets old, and The Joe's of the world get sick of taking responsibility for so many shady fly by night contractors. He wont be backed in a corner, and the blame is on us contractors. The years go by, and budgets are now made to include this factor (we all use fudge factors right?), therefore cutting prices, and eliminating bidding. The customer comes to his trustworthy contractor and says, here is our price sheet for the work, and his longtime contractors are insulted and go to another Industry or figures he will stick it out, and it will all be over and back to normal soon, he has worked for this client along time and is loyal as is the client to him, nothing changes, and the contractors way of living is tight, he starts complaining openly about the rates to everyone, even if he chooses to do the work anyway. This trickles down to the workers, and they start to wonder if they are in the right Industry. They feel they are not valued, they feel uncertain about their futures, and we loose some more good people, and have to train a fresh batch of newbies, and the cycle continues until very few good workers and contractors are left.
It is hard to find employees, we cant afford to run fleet vehicles, get benefits, etc, because: we don't have enough personal to make the billing it takes to get those things for them, and two lets face it folks, it is slim pickens sometimes when we are trying to set up guys who live in that system to do installs so they wont have to work so many hours. But all of those guys that live in that system and do this work have been burned by others or were the the ones that burnt us, and we have to bring in guys from another town, and subcontract them the work as 1099, asking that they provide their own trucks and tools.
Those guys, come in and have to drive an extra 100-200 miles a day just to and from home sometimes, and the gas is killing them, and it starts to hurt their families quality of life, and they vent to others they know, like we do here, and pretty soon the Treys of the world jump on the opportunity to spout out Union propaganda, and the guys jump on board.
Well, do really think the Fortune 500's are going to just throw their hands in the air and say, alright we will pay everyone what we paid before. No way, it is going to take a lot more than that to get the respectable wages we once had back again. We don't even trust or value each other half the time because we are always afraid for the worst, and so are they. Do you think they really will cave into a union bullying them either. Heck no, they don't want to jump through hoops and unravel red tape just to get things done, so they either have it done in-house, or hire Independent Contractors, or both....and the whole story starts all over again.
Now don't anyone get me wrong here, the only people I am pointing the finger at here are the con-artist and hacks that devalued our trade. They aren't going to go away either, unless we all communicate like we do here. So and So, didn't pay me, is on drugs, is a thief, etc. A union would complicate all of this so much more,by telling each side what we can and cant do, we loose what control we have as Independents, and soon we would be considered little more than the cockroaches of society, and folks we are getting pretty close.
What needs to happen here is an agreement amongst ourselves to raise the bar and earn our stripes back. I know a lot of us have done a lot to help our clients over the years and have excellent reputations and work ethics. We are rewarded by getting a contract every year if we are interested, job security is all they can offer us, and thats why so many smaller or lesser known contractors cant figure out how to become a prime. They have the primes they have used before or somehow were recommended. The customer worries too, their rear end is on the line too so they hope to get the guys they know and trust so they don't go thought this vicious cycle again. You have to take those you can trust, and then even the good primes end up getting called names and gossiped about because we have to hire the unknown subs and hope it works, our budget gets blown.....do you see how this trickles down. No one comes out smelling like a rose. Not Joe MSO, not John Prime, and not Bill sub. How is a Union going to fix that???? I think it would just isolate everyone further, soon we will have nothing but crews from another country sent here with work visa's doing installs for minimum wage and happily sending that money back home. The good old days as we call them were not as political as they are today. Back then, Joe could call John, to fix something for him, they would walk it out, come to an agreement, shake hands, get a PO and get to work. Now we have to to go through a number of screenings etc. for everyones good, it is frustrating. If you add a Union to the mix, we may as well hang up our meters, because all hell will break loose. I have seen this before...it is a lose lose situation.
Trey her is how I see it!
Member #: 28412
Registered: 1/28/2004
Posted:
869
Name:
Kim Dehne
Name:
Kim Dehne
Location:
California
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