> Wow! It seems everyone has an opinion to cover their *ss. There are still primes out there that are paying well, but they are hard to find because they don't advertise it, I mean, they can only handle so many employees. This is a vast country and that prime might be pretty far away also. The person that said don't actually go to work for the rest of these low paying companies was right. It's hard for people not to accept work though when there are bills that need to be paid and work is close to home. PAPER CONTRACTORS NEED TO GO! They are hurting prices. There are companies large enough to handle management and do their own work, but these large companies need to pay their subcontractors more. There are way too many subcontractors that are paying employees in their company cheaper than employees working for the prime. I will not stand for doing the same work as someone else and getting paid less again. Someone's making money in that situation that doesn't need to be. UNDERBIDDING IS REALLY HURTING PRICES ALSO! These smaller companies that are underbidding the larger ones just can't do the quality work because they don't have the equipment or the manpower and the larger companies can't accept lower pay because they have their equipment and employees to pay for. And how about these smaller companies that bid low to get a job and then desperately try to find people to work for them because they have nothing? I think that REDHEAD350 was right in saying that most linemen wouldn't be able to negotiate a strike. If we quit someone's going to take our place anyway. There are always people that are going to work for cheap just so they can get more drugs. I am all for a strike or a union or whatever it's going to take for fair prices, but someone's going to have to take charge here. It can't be just us linemen. Contractors have to be in on this also. It's going to take more money for you to pay us linemen better. MSOs watch out because this might turn into something big.
