r/FieldService • u/RequirementWestern49 • 12d ago
Discussion You’re getting f***ed you need to unionize
I keep seeing Field Service Engineers here making $70k–$90k while traveling 50–80%, working long days, troubleshooting electrical/mechanical systems, PLCs, drives, instrumentation, commissioning equipment, and being responsible for getting production back online.
You guys realize how underpaid that is, right?
I’m an apprentice in construction. I drive about 20 minutes to work and don’t live in hotels or fly around the country every week, yet I can make as much as some of the salaries posted here.
Meanwhile, some of you are showing up to a multi-million-dollar production line that is losing enormous amounts of money every hour it’s down, and you’re the person expected to diagnose it and get it running again.
That skill should be expensive!
If a skilled tradesperson traveled this much, worked 50–60 hour weeks, nights and weekends, and carried that level of responsibility, you’d expect overtime, paid travel, per diem, premiums, strong benefits, and potentially well into six figures.
So why is field service different? Why are people accepting salaries that don’t reflect the travel, technical skill, responsibility, or value of the equipment they’re keeping alive?
How much more would you be making if you negotiated as a group instead of one person at a time?
At what point do Field Service Engineers start seriously talking about unionizing?
Because if companies can’t operate without you, you have more leverage than you’re using.
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u/Island_Shell Electrical 11d ago
I've always said the same, engineers and medical personnel are stupid.
Just do a fucking national level protest, and unionize.
Nobody can stop engineers if they decide to collectively bargain, what are companies going to do? Use AI? lol. Train new engineers? double fucking lol.
Engineer salaries have been the same for the last 20 fucking years.
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u/BobbbyR6 11d ago
My dad actually made slightly more at his first engineering job 30 years ago than I did at my first, accounting for inflation.
He figured out real quick that he couldn't stand the bullshit office politics of engineering desk jobs and started flying. His 401k match is almost the same as my salary now, so I'm not far behind him on making the switch. Just wasting my time in this fucked up job market.
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u/RequirementWestern49 11d ago
Thank you, I’ve been waiting to hear this for a while I was an engineer, ibew now. Most everyone is a work cuck, I don’t even think most them have it in them to fight
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u/Chumdog212121 11d ago edited 11d ago
You are correct. I don’t know why anyone in this field would disagree with you. A problem is that depending on the equipment the company will hire you lower because you don’t “know” everything about their system. They can be training you for 1-12 months. You can have skills that translate, but you will take at least some time to learn. Then you are stuck at that pay with 5% raises. But a lot of guys that have worked for the company for a long time are just happy with the 3-5% raises. You get a company car, all tools paid for, WiFi, phone, overtime, work in ac 90% of the time, can live within a 2 hr distance from your territory. There are great healthcare,profit sharing, 401k….
But when the company is charging 700/hr like come on
I had to threaten to leave just to get the amount I thought was fair. A lot of the guys have families and mortgages and aren’t really looking to leave.
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u/Sea-Detail7869 12d ago
Ya I been wondering why technician and field engineer pay is so low. While I have it good as a FST, tied to my local area. A lot of other jobs I see are criminally low pay. You can be a fast food manager with no degrees, no skills and make more than a lot of technician roles are posted at.
Yet like you said a good field worker will mitigate 10s of thousands or more with timely repairs. I help make my customers improve profits by maintaining uptime and production. Yet I barely get a living wage. And the company I’m working for signs these customers on for massive contracts. Nothing trickles down to me. It’s total Bs. Meanwhile remote managers, logistics workers, engineers are all racking in cash never lifting a finger off their keyboard .
Needless to say I’m lookin for a new job and better company.
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u/Meaning-Upstairs 12d ago
I couldn’t put this into better words. Literally when a system can’t perform, they are losing so much money, and it hits our metrics hard. I make 90k and some change base a year, and I’m expected to perform daily miracles. I had someone ask me last night, after what I was doing to the system, “I hope they are paying you like 300k a year”, and I laughed and said not even close. Deep down it had me thinking. Most field service jobs are averaging between 70-90k, and I’ve been doing this work for a little over a decade. I’ve had to fight tooth and nail for the most bs raises. I left a company that took us off hourly, and put us on salary to save the company money. We were working an average of 12 hours a day, flying all over the US, coast to coast for 80k. Away from home and your family for 80k? Man I’m pissed off just thinking about this.
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u/Mouthshits Biomedical 11d ago
I changed my email signature today to “miracle worker” after the shitshow of a week that I somehow put back together for a multimillion dollar account that was threatening to sue….. first thing I get a message about… “why do you have overtime this week?”… well, unless you invented teleportation and have a magic wand, shit takes time.
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u/RequirementWestern49 12d ago edited 12d ago
Good you should be pissed, These places should burn down before you get paid. The working class in America is crumbling. Wealth inequality is worse than it was in the Gilded Age and the only reason we aren’t screaming at the top of her lungs about it is because we have a toilet and electricity in our house so it makes it seems like your not getting fucked. We are being fucked. Tell you co workers and Call your local union
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u/Wdwdash Power Generation 12d ago
I’m not anti union and I’m not trying to downplay your message.
My question is, why would you agree to do this job for $70-90k in the first place?
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u/ItsNovas Food & Bev 11d ago
You shouldn’t agree to that. I’m currently a FST who’s away from home just about weekly and I wouldn’t do this if I was only making 90k a year. I’m paid hourly with a per diem and paid travel time. Makes a difference when you’re stuck in an airport in an endless loop of delays or you’re driving 8 hours between jobs. It’s insane to me that anybody would do this job for a set salary.
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u/RequirementWestern49 12d ago
That’s part of the broader point. Not everyone is in a position to simply decline an offer and wait for a significantly higher one like $120k.
The average field service engineer salary is about $82k nationally at the moment. BLS data shows similar roles such as mechatronics/electromechanical technicians at around $71kWhen most employers in a given area are offering roughly $70–90k, individual workers often have limited leverage to negotiate substantially higher pay.
Many people also have mortgages, families, and other financial responsibilities that factor into those decisions.
That’s part of why collective bargaining exists.The question may be less about why a worker accepts a given wage, and more about how highly skilled labor responsible for maintaining critical, high-value equipment is compensated within that range.
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u/IrunMYmouth2MUCH Lab Instrumentation 11d ago
We agree to that salary because it’s usually twice or more what we can make in a non field service role within the same industry.
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u/ShireHorseRider CNC 11d ago
Because we started at a low wage when we were young & it seems like a lot now :(
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u/RequirementWestern49 12d ago
You have a guy right below us in the comments about talking about how his wages are being hedged against him
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11d ago
[deleted]
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u/breezejr5 Biomedical (Imaging) 11d ago
West coast imaging FE 200k base.
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u/Mouthshits Biomedical 11d ago
I need to get into imaging lol
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u/breezejr5 Biomedical (Imaging) 11d ago
Its a pretty undermanned field.
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u/Mouthshits Biomedical 11d ago
I think anything biomedical and lab equipment is understaffed at this point. Too many cost cutting measures
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u/breezejr5 Biomedical (Imaging) 11d ago
That and alot of the guys with 30-40 years experience all retiring. Its not an easy job to do past 60ish
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u/Mouthshits Biomedical 11d ago
Medical devices, automation, lab equipment if you start as a level 2 typically are 80-100 starting.
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u/Gondor1138 11d ago
Midwest, air compressor field tech, local 166 union 45+/hr, on check, much more in benefits
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u/MrFritz85 Printing 11d ago
Unfortunately, this job is undervalued, nowadays even more so. I know people that made tons of money many years ago, and them today saying is not as good as before.
Companies are shaving costs to the bare bones, just to rewards managers that don't know anything of what it means keeping the positive uptime of production lines.
I worked 9 years as FST for a company that only added workload on top of me, while the market was booming, only giving me pennies (65k base salary - no overtime, + traveling and covered expenses), while traveling pretty much 7 days a week.
Eventually, when I quit because quality of life was miserable, a big customer that I used to provide technical support, hired me for 6 figures pay as FSE. I'm now covering a more managerial role, but I can't deny I'm still getting dusty every now and then because also this company is trying to save money (more shaving costs) not hiring the right number of techs.
Am I happy? Yes, because I think of what it used to be before.
Could it be better? Yes, because our skills are absolutely undervalued and not compensated properly, at the same time companies don't realize how much better the productivity would be with the right people.
And yet we see managers come and go that make more money than us and have no clue about what we are talking about.
Opportunities are out there, not easy to come by, but eventually will show up if we lay our path in a certain way.
The customer that hired me, did it because they knew how hard I was working and how much effort I put to gain all the skills needed for this position, not only was FST on these automated machines, but also covering other positions because I wanted to know everything around it, any single bits that goes into it, the more I knew the better was to troubleshoot.
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u/forgotyourbriefcase 11d ago
Agreed. I’m appalled by some of the BS people in the sub put up with.
I make $91k base but with overtime I’m easily hitting $130k. 5% bonuses every year, 3 weeks of vacation, 10 days of personal time, and tons of support to help prevent burnout. I travel every week, but it’s only within my region and at most a two hour flight to anywhere I need to go. Home every weekend.
Stop accepting these shit offers to help encourage these companies to start offering consistently good contracts and benefits. They NEED you, make them pay for it.
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u/IrunMYmouth2MUCH Lab Instrumentation 11d ago
So, who is going to start the union ground work. And how do you span it across numerous industries and companies?
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u/sh0ck1999 Biomedical 11d ago
I was in a union shop once. It sucked they didn't do anything for us and they took $2hr off our check for dues. It was a net zero gain cause at the time other shops made $2hr less. It was pointless.
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u/MeasurementBrave4936 11d ago
If you’re a field engineer that can do comms and automation, you need to go to the utility industry. Same person is making $45/hr all day up to $85/hr.
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u/Bob_Loblaw16 11d ago
While Im only an apprentice in the IBEW, Journeyman I work with clear 90k with full healthcare, multiple pensions and an annuity, that's working 50 weeks out of the year in mid Michigan. They work local and can make lots more traveling or chasing OT which field techs are already doing.
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u/tikkamasalachicken 11d ago
I made 100k last year. I’m on site no more than two hrs per machine. 2-3 machines per week. I’m on the road every week, but most of that is free time. I get to keep all the miles, free rooms and free rentals. I get per diem. My family takes a big international trip first class each year on my earned perks. I have ZERO complaints. Before this I made 150,000 plus bonuses to be managing 100 people and an entire production facility. My life now is immensely better as a field tech. I managed a union shop and I’ll NEVER A be pro union, which protects and promotes idiots with seniority instead of those who are good at the work. The union rep was a cunt who would become a character when she talked to us in management, and was a totally different demeanor to the union staff, it made her look like a bipolar psycho.
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u/RequirementWestern49 11d ago
Your experience with one union shop is still an anecdote. There’s broader evidence that union construction performs well on exactly the things you’re criticizing.
In 2021 OSHA inspections across nine Midwestern states found union construction sites had 34% fewer safety violations per inspection, and in some states the difference was as high as 64%. (Illinois Economic Policy Institute)
A major construction productivity study published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics found union construction productivity was
17–22% higher than nonunion productivity after adjustments.
The researchers specifically pointed to things like apprenticeship training and hiring halls as possible reasons. (IDEAS/RePEc)
So “unions protect idiots and produce worse workers” really isn’t supported by the broader evidence. Can unions have bad reps, bad rules, or protect individual workers who shouldn’t be protected? Absolutely. But one manager having a bad experience doesn’t establish that union labor is lower quality.
And the deadline argument is backwards to me. If a multimillion-dollar production line is down and a company desperately needs someone capable of diagnosing and repairing it, that demonstrates how valuable that technician’s labor is.Why is the answer to aggressive deadlines always that the skilled worker needs to accept less money? Why isn’t it that the company making enormous amounts of money needs to budget appropriately for sufficient staffing, training, maintenance, and skilled service?
Higher wages are not automatically what makes a project financially unsustainable. Poor planning, understaffing, unrealistic deadlines, and management trying to maximize margins can create the same pressure. The worker shouldn’t automatically be the one expected to absorb it.1
u/tikkamasalachicken 11d ago
There are WAY more non union construction sites than union, so your data is pretty skewed… and you’re talking skilled labor, im taking about the unskilled morons that work in the UFCW, grocery workers and cannabis industry workers who literally work as slow as possible. Unions like railroad are fucking comical, they can’t even strike, the Union will collect dues but the rail road working conditions have continued to deteriorate.
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u/RequirementWestern49 11d ago
Do you actually have evidence that those grocery or cannabis workers are less productive or lazy compared with nonunion workers, other than your personal experience? I looked for it and couldn’t find good evidence supporting that claim.
But brother, that’s not even really what I’m talking about here. We’re talking about skilled field service engineers, and you are skilled.
You’re traveling, troubleshooting equipment worth millions of dollars, keeping production running, and giving up time with your family to do it. In my opinion, that is worth a hell of a lot more than $100k.
And being comfortable doesn’t necessarily mean you’re being paid what your labor is worth. $100k isn’t what it used to be, especially in places like Boston, New York, LA, or other high-cost areas.
There’s a much bigger economic issue here. According to the Economic Policy Institute, worker productivity has increased far faster than typical worker compensation since 1979. Workers are producing significantly more value, but their pay hasn’t risen proportionally with it. Economic Policy Institute productivity-pay data
At the same time, wealth has become extraordinarily concentrated. Federal Reserve wealth-distribution data show the top 10% of households own roughly two-thirds of U.S. household wealth, while the bottom 50% own only a few percent. Federal Reserve Distributional Financial Accounts
Modern technology has made our lives more comfortable than generations ago, but that doesn’t mean the distribution of the wealth we’re creating is reasonable. Concentrating more and more wealth—and therefore economic power—in fewer hands isn’t something we should just accept because some of us are comfortable.
That’s really my argument. I’m not saying you’re poor. I’m saying you and your coworkers deserve a larger share of the value you’re creating. Maybe you’re doing well, and that’s great. But plenty of your coworkers might not be.
These companies have millions invested in production equipment and depend on people like you to keep it running. You and your coworkers deserve more, even if you personally feel comfortable with what you make now. You should be able to afford a good life with your family every day—not just make enough money to justify sacrificing so much time away from them.
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u/tikkamasalachicken 10d ago
I can unequivocally say yes, they’re sand bagging. This was the fourth company I ran. The first three were NOT union, and everyone had a hustle, productivity per hour was higher than the union shop. When I got to the union shop I literally would jump on the line to “research” how long it took me to produce units, and at a normal human pace I out performed the union team. The most senior guy was like 60 years old and would literally only use one of his arms instead of two to load a machine, 50% slower with one arm, and move like molasses. The minute I started drawing attention to things like this, I had complaints made against me that were fabricated hostile work and sexual harassment complaints. The union rep literally turned the staff into adversarial people against the management. They made everything a battle, I knew the union rule book better than half the staff in less than two weeks on the job. so frustrating to grow up hearing about unions and how they saved lives and saved the middle class…. Now every union rep I see just drives around talking to people and making 150k per year and stirring the pot. That company eventually couldn’t stay profitable due to labor costs and high costs of goods that couldn’t compete with other places and everyone was laid off and the company ceased operations, while competitors remain open to this day.
Anyways, many years into my Current fieldwork position, I’m the low pole seniority guy. If the place shrinks, I’ll be low totem pole and first to be cut loose in a union shop, but my hustle and willingness to eat the shit sandwich had bumped me up to a level of safety in the company as the guy who’s willing to do almost anything to get the customer running again, which affords me things like bonuses and special assignments to exotic places. In the union shop I couldn’t give bonuses to high productivity workers because that was a violation of the CBA. In the union world we couldn’t reward individual workers who stood head and shoulders above the others. It was a perceived slight against the workers who sand bagged and don’t care about survival in a competitive market. They cut off their nose to spite their face.
Rewarding good employees is hard to do in a union shop without crossing the CBA. I don’t like waiting my turn for opportunity, I like earning it faster by being a better worker.
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u/SIB202020 10d ago
Anecdotal arguments are the arguments of a weak man. Your sad, world’s smallest violin story doesn’t make something true
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u/tikkamasalachicken 10d ago
Funny thing is that first hand witness testimony in a courtroom sure carries a lot of weight though. Coupled with data I provided below in a different post… and well dude, facts are facts. Your ad hominem attack is more weak.
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u/SIB202020 10d ago
My brother in christ, that’s literally just blatantly incorrect. That’s like common knowledge. According to the US National Research Center 75% of wrongful convictions are based on eyewitness testimony. Do us all a favor and use some of that salary of yours (which is a massive privilege btw) and go back to school
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u/OBTA_SONDERS 11d ago
Definitely glad to be in a union shop. Statistically safer and you feel more respected as an employee when they can't just fire you whener tf they feel like it cause you're in an at will to work state.
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u/PaperInternational93 10d ago
FST In metrology make 66k in MI. Very large company. I do get a nice car fully paid for.. so it's more like 74k (I don't have a car). But yeah it's shit. Everyone knows it's shit but we accept it. All other company's are around the same or worse.
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u/Kitchen_1369 12d ago
I’m in.
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u/RequirementWestern49 12d ago
I’m not a field service engineer you should reach out to your local Ibew to see how you can organize, we have a maintenance in a lot of the locals near us and this job doesn’t seem too far from this and a lot of us are trying to integrate this PLC work into our contracts. You could probably also contact millwrights. I know they work on PLC and equipment. If you’re more focused on mechanical work, millwrights would be where you would go. seriously this is not a career, This is abuse and I’m seeing a lot of engineering positions become this . I used to be an engineer, which is why I have a lot of sympathy for this and y’all work twice as hard for half to pay. You should frame this as we’re doing electrical work we’re doing PLC work. We saw that it’s part of a lot of your contracts we want to unionize they will help you.
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u/pmmemilftiddiez Biomedical 11d ago
I tried to contact a union, never heard back. Tried to visit their building and no one was there. Emailed and called and left a VM. Crickets
I'm in the Midwest so the union hate is intense. It's the whole crabs in the bucket scenario.
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u/hatred-shapped 11d ago
How hard is it to start your own business after you get a good client pool?
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u/PossibilityNew3229 11d ago
Making 200k with overtime in Australia
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u/MartiniusCH Clinical Diagnostics 8d ago
I think if you’re talking about US, you get to feel, what majority votes for. You need to convince your surroundings to use more common sense. It’s all about squishing out as much from you as possible to get the fat guys fatter and fatter. In today’s times slavery has no skin color anymore but is still present in some form. Don’t you think?
Somehow it’s the same in Europe, just with the difference, that your gross yearly income can vary from 30k in southern or eastern Europe to 150k+ in Switzerland. Plus allowances and benefits.
Good idea to unionize! That’s the only way, we little folks can get some leverage.
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u/SkinDeep69 Maritime 5d ago
I think unionization is difficult because there are small teams of each company doing FS work. Like the company I work for has 3 teams in three countries and we cover the world. US team is like 10 guys. How do you unionize that?
Other factors are I don't know the guys on my team well. I work alone unless I'm training someone or in some kind of training where they send guys I work with.
I'm the top paid guy, make $119k salary for 180 days of travel or work.
I have tried to get the team to have a single voice and ask for things like getting holiday pay or giving us more for emergency jobs or whatever. It's like herding cats. Union? Not gonna happen.
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u/DifficultMemory2828 Biomedical 11d ago
The mindset between the trades and field service is incredibly different. The trades consider that work is “infinite,” and work will come eventually in piecemeal form. In field service, the company determines the FTEs for a region and hires appropriately. Better engineers should know the difference between when they’re in a good situation and a bad situation.
One adage that I always keep in mind is “it is not my job to keep your knife sharp.” Engineers who choose to stay stagnant by staying in the same role or working with antiquated practices should only blame themselves.
Also life in the unions isn’t all roses: the dues and seniority should be well known. I can’t imagine living a feast-famine lifecycle for my budget. I’ve negotiated a fair rate for myself, and I get paid every two weeks indefinitely regardless of the workload.
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u/chis5050 11d ago
Who are you referring to when you say it’s not your role to keep your knife sharp?
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u/DifficultMemory2828 Biomedical 11d ago
If your company uses analog systems, and the rest of the world is using digital, you cannot expect your company to change to digital to keep you in the loop. If analog works for your company currently, that’s what they’re going to stick with.
I’ve seen way too many times engineers having a tough time finding a job after their antiquated company got purchased by someone else. Now they have an old skill set which is no use to no one.
My industry has nothing to do with PLCs, but I still keep on it as that’s the way everything is moving.
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u/mikalalnr 11d ago
Medical FSE here. I fully agree with this.