union link for installers not tryin to start trouble
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bumpity bump bump bump all installers need to sign up or we will be lookin for new jobs soon with the new contract I seen that perfect 10 drew up for all hsp's and msp's
phatnuts said:
I agree, satellite installers need a union. With all the changes coming down the pipe for the HSP's the power that a union would give us is very important. More and more HSP's are changing to fleet vehicles and hourly wages. The company I work for is planning to make the switch from installer owned/operated vehciles and per install pay to company fleet vehicles and hourly pay. These changes will reduce my average yearly pay by $20,000-$30,000. This will drive myself and many of my fellow installers into bankruptcy. It will be very difficult if not impossible to meet loan payments and feed our families. A real nice way to be treated by the companies that our hard work helped to build.
While a union may not prevent these changes from taking place, it will give the installer a great deal of bargaining power for wages & benefits. If a union is not inplace it is possible that many installers could be forced out entirely.
Installers who's companies classify them as employees and not independent contractors, should qualify for union representation if the majority of that company's employees vote the union in. The CWA is the way to go.
You may not feel the need for a union right now, but your company may be planning some major changes that they just haven't informed you of yet. Don't wait for them to drop the bomb on you, organize now, because if you wait it may be too late.
Drastic times don't always call for drastic measures.... I won't even pretend to understand the past, current or future situation, but I can speak from experience in living in a blue collar town. I have seen the good and the bad that have resulted at the hands of unions.
The only advice I can give you is to please make sure you make an educated decision. Sometimes you have to take a step back from the threat to your livelihood and look at all possible options.
Take this for you what you will and I wish everyone the best of luck.
The only advice I can give you is to please make sure you make an educated decision. Sometimes you have to take a step back from the threat to your livelihood and look at all possible options.
Take this for you what you will and I wish everyone the best of luck.
Chado said:
I have looked at it very closely and I choose the union. I'll give an example of what I personally am facing with the companies' planned changes. I did three jobs yesterday, one HD upgrade ($40), one service call ($25) and one 2 outlet install ($85). That's a total of $150 I made yesterday. Of that I maybe had $25 in overhead, so that brings it down to $125. I took 7 hours to do the work (including drive times between jobs). Had I been getting paid under the new plan (roughly $10 per hour) I would have made $70 for the same work. But here is the big difference, my employer would have expected me to do more jobs and work a complete 8 hours. Once they put the installers in company vehicles they will demand that the installers are earning the company X number of dollars for every hour they work. If the installer cannot keep up with the company quota, they will get canned. At present the only quota we have is that if you cannot earn an average of $15 per hour (per install pay divided by hours worked) then you have no business installing satellite systems. Thing is after these changes they will not even be paying us that $15 per hour they say we should earn as a minimum. Very few people have trouble making that $15 per hour quota.
Without a union we will be at the company's mercy. I realize the company is in business to make money. Problem is they are wanting more, and if they can't get it from D* then they are going to take it from the installers by paying them less & less. Where & when does it stop? When we are all making minimum wage?
You also have to look at the risks involved in our jobs. We spend countless hours every year crawling under houses & trailers, running across every kind of critter & bug you can imagine, not to mention crawling through dirt, mud, mold and only God knows what else. I have had more rashes, bug and spider bites on my body than I care to relate. We also spend a lot of time in attics, walking on ceiling joists where one missed step and you'll find yourself back on the ground floor in a hurry. And after rubbing against any insulation it seems like the itching will never stop. We constantly have to climb ladders, walk on steep roofs and do so in all kinds of weather (we don't take the day off or cancel an install just because it's raining, D* would allow that). Also as of this year the only holidays D* will allow the HSP's to take off will be Thanksgiving Day & Christmas Day, and our companies will not be paying any extra for all those holidays we will work.
Now you ask yourself, do the HSP installers need a union, an organization that will give them a voice in how their employer treats them and will negotiate for the best possible salary & benefits? Or do they need to get run over by a company that is trying to grab a bigger slice of the pie and doesn't care who they take it from? My vote is with the union.
Just to be the devil's advocate here what do you do when (like the tech and auto industry) you price and complain yourself right out of common sense and they just move to contracting firms that hires non-union labor to do the same work for 40% less? Now I don't claim to know all the nuances of your companies but in all three of my homes I have had built I did the A/V, phone and data wiring myself on two story tile roofs with wall fishing, attic and under floor work as well, and although very hard work, I needed no special training or degree. Similar to what I think Chado was saying is that look at past industries where the workers had killed their own livelihoods by not looking at the WHOLE picture from BOTH sides and making sure they have attached a true appropriate value to what they do.
Just remember I said I was "playing the devil's advocate" and wasn't slamming you; just throwing out some ideas. We Americans do have a bad habit of over valuing our jobs while bitching & complaining ourselves right out of good work and into the unemployment lines; and then blaming everyone else. Now if you are flat out getting screwed and treated damn near like slave labor, then by all means go for it.
Just remember I said I was "playing the devil's advocate" and wasn't slamming you; just throwing out some ideas. We Americans do have a bad habit of over valuing our jobs while bitching & complaining ourselves right out of good work and into the unemployment lines; and then blaming everyone else. Now if you are flat out getting screwed and treated damn near like slave labor, then by all means go for it.
charper1 said:
Well first of all you have to remember installers such as myself are not seeking union representation to ask for more money but just to keep the wages we get now or a comperable amount. Going from earning $50,000+ a year to less than $25,000 is a big cut. The companies are justifying these cuts by saying the new company provided vehicles will be cutting the installers overhead. But my overhead is no where near $25,000 per year, so the majority of the cut is in my pay. And that company vehicle isn't going to do anything to eliminate my truck payment. If the company you worked for was planning to cut your salary say $10,000-$15,000 per year you'd be looking into union representation as well.
I have nothing against people doing their own installs, in fact you can look at many of my posts in this forum that give advice to help those who would rather do-it-themselves.
Point is I like my work, I enjoy helping people and I like the money I make doing it. So, should I accept the changes and the cut in pay or try to protect my interests and get help from a union to keep what I have. If the company pushes ahead and makes the changes the union will aid me in making sure that whatever reduction in salary I do take will not hurt as bad as the cut the company wants to give me. It's all about negotiation. I alone do not have any bargaining power and would have to either accept what the company offered or go find another job, With the union helping me I will have some say in the matter.
I am an installer for what sounds like the same company as phatnuts, going through sane type of issues, thoe in my region, company vehicals have not come to pass. I live in a slave- state known as Idaho, in which is not a right to work state, and the bosses (masters) crack the whip on a regular basis threating jobs if techs dont take on extra work for same pay or set unrealistic demands such as driving 500 miles in a day in and expected to do 4-5 complete installs of varying callaber with phone lines. And if you do work for these contractors, you know each job is of different degrees of difficulty... groundsource, line of sight, cable distance to travel, customer specifications, and trying to keep the install as tight as possiable without creating a serious eyesore. I strongly agree that a union is nessasary if employees expect to last in this field. There needs to be some sort of regulation of what a humanbeing should be required to do in order to make an honest living. because when people are forced to work from 7 am to 300am (if customer allows)on a daily basis, and have days off takin away because the company need him to line there pocket books, without concerne or compinsation for the over worked worker, and the only means used to compell them to get the jobs done right and get them closed, ist to threaten his livelyhood, This in no other terms that fit is called slavery, and oppression. I like the job, I like the work, and satisfaction of doing a job well done. I just have been developing an increesingly bitter attitude towards working for people who have no respect for the humans who do there leg work, and want them to walk till the soles are worn off there feet, and the wheels fall off their trucks. I guess my company sees us as disposable assets, or dirty whores who better do as they ask, who they ask, and as many as they ask, to bring the pimp his cash. SORRRRY...... needed to vent. But anyways, it has come to my attention that There is a union availabe to us, and I cant help but wonder why is it that living in this state no one else in my field has thought to organize here. Or have they? I was told by a co;worker yesterday that he called the Idaho state board of employment, and they told him that an employer in Idaho could fire anyone for any reason, even if he just dident like the color of your hair. I live in some backward county up here, some 60 years behind the times, where the men are men and the sheep,... well they do there best to keep their backs to the fence im sure. The cwa came to my attention yesterday, and so when I came on line today and began to research, I saw your posts, and am tryint to get as much information together to make an educated desision on what action to take, im tired of living in a state of fatiuge, fear of unemployment, and being takin advantage of. I have recently been schooled by my new supervisor as to who is boss. I spoke out leting him know that these late nights and early mornings were killing me, and only having one day off a week was not enough to recoop, as well as take care of personal bussness. I guess that was a mistake because now the gameplayn has begun. sending me out 500 miles one day with 4 installs up and down the mountain sides across 2 states, and the next because I dident complete all of those jobs and told him that I was gratefull I had a couple of people who wanted to reschedule because with all that distance I traveled I would have been out till the break of dawn to get those jobs done unless the gods were smileing on me and I had the luck of the irish lepracons behind me where these jobs had had satieite service in the past with a groundsource near by and phonelines at every location. So the next day 3 big jobs were lined up locally, other techs walked out with 3- recievers, I walked out with 9 and a Tivo. So I said to myself, ok... Im game, lets play. I left the office ready to take on the day. the first job I got to, all the customer wanted was to have a site survey done incase maybe he wanted satelite, the second, no one home, the third told me over the phone she dident set an appointment nor did she want an install to take place, that I must be mistakin. Coincidence? Im not even going to guesstimate, Im not a big beliver in coincidence, but never the less Im takin the message that I need to do something to protect my rights, and set some regulation of those rights or anyone with a little power gone to his head and over a situation can use it to my disadvadge. But I wasent too upset, I got to spend the afternoon with my honey, and I came to a dissision that If I was going to last any was ever going to have any peace doing the work I like to do, Ive got to contact a Union, otherwise I can be takin out the game by any jerk with too much time on his hands who wants to take me out, or toy with me until I go postal, or just give up. What I would like to know, is what stat you are in and what you might know about cwa, and what kinds of experience you may have had concerning the union vs/ employers. And if by some luck u are in the same state, same company, how many others do you think would stand up. It takes at least two with the head to keep their mouth shut, and the balls to to stand up and not fold at the fallout that may occur when the union contacts their employers because they wish to have the represent them. please Reply....anyone
You're better off looking to yourself for solutions than the unions. Perhaps the CWA is different than most - but the ones I've dealt with are not that interested in the workers themselves. They are simply "dues machines" doing the absolute minimum to justify collecting their dues and getting involved politically - not to benefit the workers - but to maximize the number of dues paying members.
The unions have been very good to us here in the Carolinas however. We are full of manufacturing plants of businesses that were driven out of the Northeast by the unions. So I guess I shouldn't complain.
The unions have been very good to us here in the Carolinas however. We are full of manufacturing plants of businesses that were driven out of the Northeast by the unions. So I guess I shouldn't complain.
CPanther95 said:
guys i am from the pittsburgh pa area. the home of the afl/cio and the steel workers and the united mine workers.
AND a teamster, with a vested pension.
the cwa was DE-certified in the pittsburgh dma last year, by the comcast employees, WHY???
one more thing, im a MSP contractor and a former HSP employee, WHY do you think the MSP was created???? think about it.....
listen to panther, he makes sense!!!
I might be a bit jaded since my hometown is in Western PA and I lived near Allentown prior to moving down here where I saw the union at Mack Truck not budge an inch so they packed up and moved to South Carolina. IIRC, Mack had offered to bump them to $33/hour - the union kept their demands at $35/hour - now they're lucky to find a job at $10/hour.
CPanther95 said:
That is a risk for some companies but with satellite installs the workers have all the power in the world if they use it. For one thing most likely most if not all areas of the country can't just get replacement workers. Secondly a company can't outsource the work or move the business to another state. They can't do an install in Largo, FL with a worker in LA can they.
One of my contacts at the St. Pete Times said that in the last 6 months they have had so many complaints and open routes that their call center staff has been getting angry and have been using the U word several times. Also even the open routes that they fill have a turnover of about 2 months including the 30 day notice. Right now people are nuts to not let a union in and yes a union isn't perfect and yes they want to make money but the fact is that most companies will flat out screw you worse than any union would. My thinking is that we should take the lesser of two evils and that would be the union.
LonghornXP said:
No, but the unions can drive up salaries for workers to a level that may not be equivalent to the amount/quality of labor being done. This would have a "trickle-down" effect as D* would just pass this on to the customer in many ways. Higher bills, slower rollout of high perfomance hardware (god forbid), etc. Then its possible that the demand for D* would decrease meaning that there would be less work for installers and so on and so on....
I am generalizing and assuming, but I think you get my point.
Obviously there's a point at which you can safely say - it can't be any worse. If this particular industry is clearly going into the sh*tter from the worker's perspective and there is no future if the trend continues - then it's time to look at any possible alternative.
Chado said:
Why is UPS not having these problems. They offer tons of benefits and very very high pay among many other things. With all that said they no doubt make a profit quarter after quarter while their S&H rates aren't any higher than FedEx and USPS and they quite often partner with say Amazon for free shipping and such. I think I read an article about Amazon customers can pre-order the new Harry Potter book and they would get it shipped for free on the day of its release. I ended up having to buy three of them so I don't have to deal with the stores and have the kids yelling nonstop at me.
I'm just sick of hearing that prices would be passed on to customers and the company won't make profits and so on and so forth. Every decent sized company that has a union in place today is doing very well. I just wish people would actually do some research instead of always posting what they believe to be true but isn't.
CPanther95 said:
If things are getting that bad how is it any easier for everyone to quit and start over. Maybe it might be better for once to fight back and say enough is enough. The way things are going you won't have an alternative. Going by your logic would eventually fail because once big business got into everything you won't have an alternative left that they don't control. Once that happens you have to say enough is enough. With that said why wait until that happens. Why not just stop things before they occur.
LonghornXP said:
Everyone has choices they have to make. They aren't easy ones at time, but they have choices.
Most people in my profession would have liked to have a choice rather than just get let go without any notice.....
From where I sit, they are lucky to have the information they currently have.
Chado said:
Damn you found the one company that had the exception to this rule. Sadly its a big company that I should have remembered. Either way GM is a horrid company that will never change. Most companies for the most part when forced to cave in will indeed cave in and be better for it. Believe this or not the St. Pete Times just three years ago had one of the best if not the best service for newspapers in the entire country. they are also a major newspaper with tons of customers. They offered health benefits along with many other benefits to both full and part-time employees including carriers. They have always made a profit year after year with every year being a bigger profit. Once they put an article in their own newspaper saying when they would be switching to independant contacts so they can provide better service and newspaper content I knew things would get bad. For one thing the content isn't any better but the paper gets to customers much later than normal while many customers don't get the paper at all while before they always did.
Also if you want to know it wasn't more than 30-45 days after everyone got switchover to an independant contacter that I found out that the St. Pete Times bought the rights for the Ice Palace and all of their execs got sweat club level seats for any event held at the Ice Palace.
You make once guess where that 20 or so million came from to buy the rights.
If you didn't guess I'll tell you.
Health Insurance, 401K, profit sharing, cutting pay, along with many other smaller things that add up when counted in volume. How is that fair for both the worker and customer. The customer doesn't see the benefit of that money and worse they see their service going to crap. The workers for sure don't see the benefit of this either. So they took everything away from the little guy so they could buy the rights to the Ice Palace while their big time execs get even more perks. What is amazing is that this company also wanted to buy the rights for the Devil Rays but they felt they would lose money on that.
LonghornXP said:
You misread what I was saying - I was referring to the union as a "possible alternative", not starting over. If it's that bad, and going downhill, the union can't do any worse.
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