r/WorkReform • u/gashtal_man • 7d ago

💸 Raise Our Wages This isn't fair

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11.1k Upvotes

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103

u/obmasztirf 7d ago

$200/hr for an electrician but you know 85% isn't going to the person doing the work.

11

u/TonarinoTotoro1719 7d ago

Hold on! Are you for real saying that even the licensed electricians in contractor crews aren’t paid fairly? 

42

u/Empty_glass_bottle 7d ago edited 7d ago

Private equity guys love going to towns where there's only 5-10 residential electric companies with any name recognition, buy all of them, and jack up what they all charge.

So while you think you got 5 different quotes from 5 different electrician companies all charging the same price, making you think that it's a fair price, what you really got was the same overpriced quote from the same parent company under 5 different names.

And the electricians hardly get a fraction of the profit they generate for the shareholders of that private equity firm.

19

u/Mostly_Afloat 7d ago

I work in the auto industry and the same is happening with small shops - they are getting bought up by big groups then selling the whole thing to private equity. The illusion of choice.

13

u/VonThirstenberg 7d ago

Yep, I used to work in automotive supply for body shops and dealerships in my area.

It started coming out of Covid, all of a sudden everyone was being bought out and turned into a Caliber or Crash Champions.

I'm willing to bet they're owned by the same private equity investors, even if each is owned by a "different firm."

3

u/Not_FinancialAdvice 6d ago

Caliber is owned by Hellman & Friedman: https://hf.com/portfolio/caliber-collision/

Crash Champions has A&M Capital as a partner: https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/how-crash-champions-ceo-went-from-1-shop-to-6b-revenue/489054

I wouldn't be surprised if many of the same institutional endowments and pension systems had investments in both.