The formula for a cable provider staying in business in this climate is:
-Don’t pay on time, keep the cash for the bottom line.
-Hire the cheapest help possible then squeeze them for every penny.
-Take on as many new customers as possible regardless of profitability. (You’ll notice there’s not a lot of credit checking going on)
The blood is in the water and the sharks are circling. Cable providers are only worried about one thing, the bottom line. They are trying to position themselves to buy out others or be bought out and contractors don’t fit into either equation except in using and abusing them.
Unfortunately many of the contractors and subs are doing the same things to the dawgs. The good news is companies like TCC that burn up all of their contracts and subs won’t be around when the climate changes.
I have no idea what affect a union would have. Most unions I’ve been around are good ol’ boy systems that are about who you know, not what you know. They also tend to protect the screw-ups and the real money ends up with the union leadership, not the workers. Many unions are comprised of thugs and slackers that have to be in a union to get a job. What you need, IMHO, is for contractors to agree to stop accepting breadcrumbs. Agree to minimum amounts and don’t work for anyone who accepts/pays less.
I personally hope that cable providers continue to hire the lowest bidder and destroy all of their customer loyalty. I’ve jumped ship to small dish, home theater, and networking never to return to cable. I listen to customers all day every day tell me about hours waiting on hold, digital boxes that never worked, installers that looked like they slept in their clothes and smell of booze. Today I made $200 on a job that the customer was converting to DirecTV from cable and returning four digital boxes. Some poor dawg that knew he couldn’t spend the 4 hours rewiring the house left in a 59 drop held up by ground wire and 59 all through the house. I sympathize with him/her. They wouldn’t have made 25% of what I got paid to do the same work. The customer and the dawg got screwed by the providers cheap ass business practices and they lost yet another customer. If cable providers don’t wake up, I’ll be converting all of their customers. In case some of you aren’t aware, satellites are eating up your market fast and furious.
