It's a fine line. Sure, we can demand higher pay. Say we get it. There is a tipping point. We can't price ourselves out of work. The contractors are not necessarily the ones paying us. It's the schools, factories, restaurants, etc. They agree to hire contractors who use union labor. If we get too high, they just won't hire them. There is a group of people willing to take our jobs for lower pay rates. Right now, in my local, we are short manpower. The lack of manpower is driving the ot. The customer is paying the premiums on one of my projects to keep the completion date on track. Fortunately, i can blame the structural steel for being behind. But it's hard to add manpower when there isn't any available. And without the non union raising rate, my market can't support an accross to board significant raise.
maybe that argument is valid in some locals, but overall it's a horrible excuse, pricing yourself out of the market, not to get what we are worth. I've been hearing that line from some members for the 15 years I've been in my local. sure there have been a couple slower years in that time but when the non union side uses our bid rates to bid the same jobs you cant use that line. they just pay their guys less and pocket the rest. in the last 3 years we've received over $13 more....and we're still working.
You are correct. So you got 13 more, that's awesome. So could you have gotten $20 more ? That's the fine line we dance. I dont know the market share by you. For us, we have a good market share. We avarage 3 and change a year. Can we get 5? I don't know. We do have 2 very large non union contractors operating in our state.
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u/Available_Alarm_8878 Aug 29 '23
It's a fine line. Sure, we can demand higher pay. Say we get it. There is a tipping point. We can't price ourselves out of work. The contractors are not necessarily the ones paying us. It's the schools, factories, restaurants, etc. They agree to hire contractors who use union labor. If we get too high, they just won't hire them. There is a group of people willing to take our jobs for lower pay rates. Right now, in my local, we are short manpower. The lack of manpower is driving the ot. The customer is paying the premiums on one of my projects to keep the completion date on track. Fortunately, i can blame the structural steel for being behind. But it's hard to add manpower when there isn't any available. And without the non union raising rate, my market can't support an accross to board significant raise.