CABL Forum - Units or Hours-your thoughts

Now somewhat retired, I've spent 47 years in the construction side of this industry having mostly worked as a prime contractor for MSO's. Back when I started 1965, all crews were hourly paid, usually a Forem-1 grunt-2 hooks out of a pick up of flatbed, only a cable block at the pole. There were no span measurements, we ran a wheel over the scaled print to get our footage, only splicing was amp-splitter-terminators, the local customer installed the pressure tap during the hook ups.
Those were good day, we got more footage then compared to todays 2-3 man crews, sure we didn't have all the safety issues-but very seldom was anyone industry wide killed. Of course everyone was paid hourly, we had pride in our work, always competitive with other crews.

What this industry needs now-more than ever: is to go back to "All Hourly Crews" The MSO's need to smarten up and demand no unit crews when requesting RFP-BID. This would eliminate all the bad week end warrior sub contractors in this industry. Run legal or get out of the trade, no more primes and all subs on units..no one paying hourly wages-taxes-insurance and such.

Sure there are some good guys left...but an industry as a whole needs to change and change fast when building these future fiber to the home systems. The IRS is getting smarter, they will find you!

IF everyone iwas hourly-the MSO's would all be forced to up the rates. Cable Lineman need to be treated equal to telephone-power lineman with full benefits. Maybe some day these lawyers will get smart and the MSO's will start getting hit for neglect of back taxes, overtime hours, workers comp, actions committed within the communities.

This industry needs to get better, our linemen and their families need to live a better life style than a bunch of tramp workers running the highways to no where.

"MicroMan...just my two cents.... in a quarter world

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Units or Hours-your thoughts