union link for installers not tryin to start trouble

[crappieguy]

That is your choice. But that doesn't answer my question. I want to know if anyone has really tried to use their "voice".

Actually I talked one on one with LW a while back and he did nothing but lie to me about everything. I had previously thought that he was always honest with me. All that changed with the new changes. The truth is we techs are gonna get screwed if we do not stick together(organize). I don't know who you are barnburner but previously you stated that you were taking a community college course for the company. Maybe they could have spent that money on this fleet. Like others have stated we do not want allot but I think we should change ins agents Mike Williams is giving us a real screwing. And Todd was asked directly why he thought we should get only 13.11 an hour and he stated why should he pay us more if he can can ppl off of the street for 10. Well that is the attitude that has gotten us here.And if these ppl can be got then where are they now when we are getting ran in the ground because so many ppl quit over the mention of these changes. Those of us that stayed around to see what happened should be rewarded for staying but instead we get seven days a week and a pay cut. Maybe Herb forgot that Todd was the one that screwed up Radio Shack and lost them a sh*t pot of money. This is all his doing period. Or so it seems. Now these statements are being made out of desperation. And disgust with the attitude. You also previously stated the corp was not as dumb as we thought they were, But previously B&A didn't even have an attorney look over their contract with "D". How smart was that? Sorry for the rant but from now on I will stick to certain topics.It all just got stirred up from reading the ten pages of posts.
L8R

 

[phatnuts]

are those vans and ins and gas cards a tax write off? Along with the mileage? It is for my truck. the insurance is to so the price of said things should have no influence on the many quotes we have gotten pertaining to pay scale.

SATECH01 yeah the union won but we split lincolns cap for that one. LOL

 

[phatnuts]

another thing, following the chain of command in my office has allways been a dead end. If I had eyes in the back of my head, when I tell them about a problem, I would see them giving me the bird as I walk out of the office.

 

[uboatcmdr]

That is your choice. But that doesn't answer my question. I want to know if anyone has really tried to use their "voice".

Yes they have tried using their voice. The techs have made several suggestions during tech meetings. One by one their hands go up to ask questions and make suggestions and one by one they are shot down. The answers usually giving to any question or suggestion are typically "
1. "I don't know"
2. "This is going to happen no matter what you do"
3. "That wouldn't work"
4. "They are not going to go for that"
5. "We are looking into it"
6. "This is the way it IS going to be"
7. "If you don't like it there is the door"
Now where in any of those answers is anything "constructive" (other than the "we are looking into that" which sounds constructive but in reality the only thing I think a corporate winnie ever "looks" into is how to screw the workers a little more)?
Again I will ask YOU, where are your "constructive" ideas? I have presented some now lets hear yours. You haven't given any because either you don't have any, any you have are really just a repeat of the crap we have been TOLD before or your only idea is to try and stall any real debate on the issues until the changes are in place.
I am trying to be positive here and give you the opportunity to show us the constructive side of management, but so far you haven't given us squat.

 

[uboatcmdr]

Sorry guys, I was taking a corporate scumbag training class at the local community college last night.
Ok, I have another question. Uboatcmdr stated that "You know for a fact that if all the techs presented ideas or suggestions on an individual basis a large majority of them would have been laughed at and round filed."
Did anyone actually try this? Do you guys really feel that no one would have listened? I believe there is even an email address posted in each office to send suggestions to. Did anyone try that?

Community College??? I think you really meant to say you where at the class B&A's hired guns (law firm) was holding entitled something like "How to keep the inmates from running the asylum" or something like that. The class is about how to screw the workers and keep a union from being voted in.

 

[rajincajun]

did we try?

dude,
we absolutely tried, a sizeable group emailing hr dept constant for a very long time, also e-mails sent to mgmnt because a tech got their e-mails, no response. the hr mgr did the best he could and to date has been the only one when, he said he would get back with you, actually did. Mike McElvine , i hope i did'nt butcher the last name, i capped him because he has EARNED respect with action. aside from that pretty much all we heard and still here is "this is how it is going to be, no discussion from you techs." that comes from everyone except mike.

now back to sateck, i'm curious to your reading and comprehention skills, i'll remind you from rajincajun; "i voted for bush,,,,TWICE!"

 

[sateck01]

i voted for him twice also. im also a conservative republican.

now back to topic.

the company (b&a) could tell you monday the new rates are in place, correct? the union is not certified yet, correct??

so by you guys thinking, as soon as the union is in place, the pay will immediately return to the old levels, or the union can demand the old rates as soon as they are certified. is that what you are saying? the company will say no. what then? strike??

just curious.

 

[phatnuts]

No strikes but if you went through what I went through this mourning you would see why we need a union in here, and again-we are not calling for a union for higher pay than we have now

 

[phatnuts]

and as far as the pay rates I guess they could tell us on monday--If they knew what those rates are!

 

[rajincajun]

are u reading?

sateck
are you reading anything or just throwing out whatever you can come up with? where did anyone say we wanted a return to old rates????????
that would be nice , however we know it isn't feasible, just don't want less, and a few checks and balances to keep everyone involved fair

 

[uboatcmdr]

i voted for him twice also. im also a conservative republican.

now back to topic.

the company (b&a) could tell you monday the new rates are in place, correct? the union is not certified yet, correct??

so by you guys thinking, as soon as the union is in place, the pay will immediately return to the old levels, or the union can demand the old rates as soon as they are certified. is that what you are saying? the company will say no. what then? strike??

just curious.

The union doesn't have to be certified to keep the company from changing pay rates. Once the company is notified that a union "yes"/"no" vote has been requested the company can not rush in and make a bunch of changes just to try and beat a deadline, the Labor Relations people and the courts in the past have rulled that such actions are unfair.
Now the company could go ahead and change the pay rates at it's offices where they have not yet been notified that the workers have asked for a union vote.

 

[sateck01]

u-boat ,

they are not rushing in, they ALREADY notified you the changes are coming.

 

[sateck01]

sateck
are you reading anything or just throwing out whatever you can come up with? where did anyone say we wanted a return to old rates????????
that would be nice , however we know it isn't feasible, just don't want less, and a few checks and balances to keep everyone involved fair

by old rates i mean the current rates. the company wants to put a number of you in company vans and pay an hourly rate, correct? your big bitch ,i think, is that if you dont take one you will be treated as a sub. if that is right , even at excalibur , the employees got the preference and the bulk of the work. the subs got what was left over, SO??

if i am wrong correct me, please.

even with a union, the company always has the right to schedule as it sees fit.

 

[rajincajun]

partially true

to a point you sir are correct. absolutely they can schedule work anyway they would like now, so that really won't change, that's not a "real" concern. as it is know routes usually are determined by abilities, this will likely be the prevailing wind in the future as well. as they bring in the much lower wage persons they will see first hand what people mean when they say , you get what you pay for. the way they are saying routing will be done is hourly first, what's left goes to techs in pov's. with the experience so far, what the company says and what the company does are two completely different things. what we don't want to happen is a forced pay cut, presently they are requesting volunteers and if people wish to work for that rate that is their perogative. if we had'nt tried to get some kind of help the next step was going to be forced, their managers stated that. the arrogance we have seen before us during this brief struggle has been almost unbelievable and sometimes almost comical, we are diligently reminded by management that they are not taking any pay reduction and it is none of our business how much they make,, they just know we make "too much" , their words. again we say , some respect would be good, we make daily sacrifices for the company good, like all good plow mules, enough is never enough

 

[sateck01]

what sacrifices do you make, sir?

please answer.

and dont make the mistake of saying that you are going out of your way to do certain things, you are paid for that.

hell i installed a girl that probably cant afford directv, mounted to a pole (existing) and the boyfriend cut the original wire , burying my wire. (she couldnt afford the wire burial at $2.00 per foot), im a msp tech and i drove 15 miles round trip for free to see a little boys face light up! his tv was back on, know what, she offered $5.00, i refused! the smile was pay enough!!

 

[phatnuts]

gee we do stuff like that all the time along with numerous things as "favors" that we do not get paid for.We do not get paid for line burial. No extra pay for advanced equip.and as for 15 mi round trip?
thatis nothing compared to what we do on a daily basis.
I spent 1.5 hrs with police after I called the office and was told "site manager is not taking any calls. They hung me out to dry.If you dont know what we go through, do not be so arrogant as to think you know what we go through

 

[rajincajun]

constant extras

yes we do MANY things to put the on customers. i could not begin to tell you how many walls i've fished for free, how many chargeable service calls get resolved and cancelled so as not to charge already tight budgeted customer, how many elderly customers who i personally give access to me anytime they need it because the csr's confuse them, how much "extra" wire hiding is done free of charge, how many carpet fishes to make cust. happy, all of which happen daily, all of which are'nt paid.
now, the call from your co-worker, man field trainer did'nt show up to do their job, left tech high and dry, it's 5oclock, can u help, for the good of the team, more importantly for the good of his co-worker, we go to help. going thru massive headachces to straighten out work orders daily, not paid, not to mention the mountain of paperwork we do on our own time that makes everyone elses life easier. tech-sup, who is friend calls and says, hey got a problem, do you know the answer?will you go show your co-worker? sure, same guy, there is a new guy not far from you, could you offer guidance? sure, once again, not paid, and no we usually don't ask, we do for each other because as it has been proven to us over and over, we are all each other has out there.
by the way if you work at msp, and msp only gets 80/20 what do they pay you? you did say you install, correct?

 

[uboatcmdr]

u-boat ,

they are not rushing in, they ALREADY notified you the changes are coming.

Yes but they didn't say it was happening on Monday (which is what you said they could do) so if they made the changes before the date they originally announced that would be akin to jumping the gun wouldn't it?

 

[uboatcmdr]

what sacrifices do you make, sir?

please answer.

and dont make the mistake of saying that you are going out of your way to do certain things, you are paid for that.

hell i installed a girl that probably cant afford directv, mounted to a pole (existing) and the boyfriend cut the original wire , burying my wire. (she couldnt afford the wire burial at $2.00 per foot), im a msp tech and i drove 15 miles round trip for free to see a little boys face light up! his tv was back on, know what, she offered $5.00, i refused! the smile was pay enough!!

Well when you contractors charge upwards of $80 for a $6 galvanized fence post, $2 per foot to bury wire and $30 per phone line I can see how you suffer so and what a great sacrifice you made for that little child. BS, we HSP's do all those things for free. We also crawl under houses and into attics, those things the contractors can and do charge extra for. I have all too often had to go behind contractors and repair their shoddy installs. I'm not saying that some HSP techs don't screw up, but atleast when we do it is our guys who go fix it. In the case of the contractors it is most often the HSP's who wind up having to clean up the mess. Sacrifieces, well sir it is a sacrifice to our dignity to have to fix the f*ck ups of the contractors.

 

[sateck01]

yes we do MANY things to put the on customers. i could not begin to tell you how many walls i've fished for free, how many chargeable service calls get resolved and cancelled so as not to charge already tight budgeted customer, how many elderly customers who i personally give access to me anytime they need it because the csr's confuse them, how much "extra" wire hiding is done free of charge, how many carpet fishes to make cust. happy, all of which happen daily, all of which are'nt paid.
now, the call from your co-worker, man field trainer did'nt show up to do their job, left tech high and dry, it's 5oclock, can u help, for the good of the team, more importantly for the good of his co-worker, we go to help. going thru massive headachces to straighten out work orders daily, not paid, not to mention the mountain of paperwork we do on our own time that makes everyone elses life easier. tech-sup, who is friend calls and says, hey got a problem, do you know the answer?will you go show your co-worker? sure, same guy, there is a new guy not far from you, could you offer guidance? sure, once again, not paid, and no we usually don't ask, we do for each other because as it has been proven to us over and over, we are all each other has out there.
by the way if you work at msp, and msp only gets 80/20 what do they pay you? you did say you install, correct?

cajun,

when i was hsp (excalibur) we always had each others backs also, we weren't paid to help the next guy either. that is just workplace comradere.

yes i am msp (area manager & ship to location) im not a "boss" per se'. i dont have to hide anything. i get 65,20
and 30 for a svc call. upgrades pay 65 also. we are insured and yes we do have qc guys running around. same as you.

i average a 3 and two 2s per day, and i work 6 days per week, same as you. as far as weekly pay goes, you do the math, and remember that is an average.

good luck to you guys, i was just paying devils advocate.
all good techs should be able to make 50g per year. work being available, a great tech should be able to gross around 70g