Wages

bjc

bjc

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My question is to the many company bosses on here,when is the money coming back into our trade,myself I'm earning what I was 4/5 years ago,but as you will know bills and other out goings keep rising so I just wondered about wages in scaffolding,thanks for your time
 
hi
i did a bit of pricing for my boss

£22 2009 ...........then £12 to £15 £2010/11 and he was and is still being undercut massively on some jobs

we had a cut from £125 to £110 and i can see why he did it ....he literally wasnt making any money

i would like to be bullish and get the lads to ask for more cash but he wouldnt get any work or make money

i dont see it going up in the short term but it will at some point

im more concerned with things like the lodge / time and half for saturdays/ double time for sundays/ and not getting paid for bank holidays

eg the royal wedding being a bank holiday that the lads wont get paid for unless taking out of the statutory 28 days

those things will be harder to get back the more money which can go up fairly easily when demand picks up
 
hi bjc good question mate the rates just seem to have went into reverse and then stalled,as you know the many owners in here are better placed to answer your question but lets hope for some upping of the rates sometime soon.
 
The problem is that with a lot of firms, they borrowed heavily from the banks during the good times to buy materials and expand.

These companies are now in an awkward situation where they need to keep cash coming in at all costs, to avoid their creditors losing their nerve. This is one reason why firms are putting in hugely discounted quotes for jobs - basically to keep ticking over and repaying their loans until the economy improves.

What will probably happen with a couple of these large companies, is that they will take on massive jobs at sh1t rates that could last for 2-3 years. If the construction sector improves dramatically during that period then they will be exposed to rising wages and overheads with these jobs and they'll actually start to lose money - rather than try and break even, or make a small profit. These firms could then collapse.

Well run, cash rich companies are trying to compete with these kamikaze rates, but it is obviously very hard to win work at the sort of rates that could justify a wage increase for their empoyee's.

My opinion, is that not until 2012 will we start to see any significant increase in wages in the scaffolding industry.
 
Can agree with the comments made on price slashing , fortunatley i never had the credit rating to get in debt with the banks , i wouldnt say we was cash rich but the bills are being paid , would have been a lot richer if hadnt of been knocked for 100k over the last 2 years
 
scaffy said:
Can agree with the comments made on price slashing , fortunatley i never had the credit rating to get in debt with the banks , i wouldnt say we was cash rich but the bills are being paid , would have been a lot richer if hadnt of been knocked for 100k over the last 2 years
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I was going to make a pun about you working for Robert Hurst Ltd,

But then I thought better of it....:laugh:
 
Yo phill181 - i aint that stuck yet and at least we pay the blokes occasionally
Strange that your mates with a Slav and a Stav haha
 
My personal opinion is , if you waiting for wages to get somewhere near to when they peaked approx 5 yrs ago , you will be waiting a long long time, in fact so long that by the time you reach a wage of say £150-00 a day across the board ( as in whole country not just cockney land ) that £150-00 wont be worth what it was 5 yr ago so you wont feel like you getting fortunes, IE you wont be getting as much for your pound.

In 2011 we have:

fuel (diesel / petrol ) £1-25 per litre
Energy ( electric/gas/oil ) on the increase
VAT now 20%
Low interest on savings or cash in the bank
poor interest rates on borrowings
massive government spending cuts which effects everything
massive government job cuts which effects everything

The best paying job in my view for the nxt 5 yrs will be a Bailiff :toung:
 
scaffy said:
Yo phill181 - i aint that stuck yet and at least we pay the blokes occasionally
Strange that your mates with a Slav and a Stav haha
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Haha - Nah mate. You're mates with one of em and I'm mates with the other!
 
This guy says it how it is.

Beware Coarse language contained, if easily offended do not watch:D
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koY6kXhQDQo]YouTube - An Irishman abroad tells it like it is !! :)[/ame]
 
i feel there are a whole load of small problems which add up to one big one...being the rate we get paid...., tax ,vat,fuel cost,rising cost of material,scaffs willing to work for for sh1te wages , and agency's taking the p!ss offering and getting away with paying p!ss poor money.. all this added up goes a long way to answering the question asked..

can i see it changing.....NO chance not with the way things are going, within the next 5 years can only see things getting worse....

a mate of mine has gone back after new year only to be he has to sign a new contract of employment which has taken this money down to £92 a day from £125...and if they dont like it they know what to do.... adds up to a 25% pay cut for a advanced scaff ..but the bottom hands will only have to take a 5% cut ..where is the sense in that...the boys who actually earn the the guy the money are worse off....
 
bjc said:
My question is to the many company bosses on here,when is the money coming back into our trade,myself I'm earning what I was 4/5 years ago,but as you will know bills and other out goings keep rising so I just wondered about wages in scaffolding,thanks for your time
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When I started out on my own 14 years ago I had 6 scaffs who are still with me. During the boom years I had about 30 scaffs. Wages peaked in 2007, and admit I have'nt increased the rate nor decreased it. The reasons been rates for jobs are ridiculously low, so much so that if I am asked to price a job I will quote a rate acceptable to me and if I dont get it, so be it. There are a lot of busy fools. I have steady ongoing work that can carry the lads, but in the course of the year there will be short periods when its not as busy. The lads are paid irrespective. We all want more money, all our costs and outgoings are rising, but to stay in business and employment should be our main aim until things turn around.
 
Good man Brandy a man after my own heart i quoted a job for 17k keeping it nice and tight to win it ans it was a good customer FU*K me if some ars*hole dont go in at 9k and they are a big firm with over 50 lads on, i was asked to review my price and i said to the contracts manager let them have my lads aint working for nothing. when firms start undercutting by silly amounts its a slippery slope that i dont wanna be on.
 
philliosmaximus said:
Good man Brandy a man after my own heart i quoted a job for 17k keeping it nice and tight to win it ans it was a good customer FU*K me if some ars*hole dont go in at 9k and they are a big firm with over 50 lads on, i was asked to review my price and i said to the contracts manager let them have my lads aint working for nothing. when firms start undercutting by silly amounts its a slippery slope that i dont wanna be on.
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well said,its easy to be a busy fool,what will happen in the future all these firms that are under cutting jobs ,well when things pick up and you go back to normal rates ,well the big firms wont pay it ,they will argue that you done that job for me 3 yrs ago for x amount e,g now you want 4,000 more for the same job,all these so called buisness men working for nothing ,ther just digging a whole for the rest of us if people keep dropping prices they will never go back up
 
The bloke with the beard is a w@nker. (Champagne socalist by the looks and sound of things)

And Michael Flatley IS from Chicago....
 
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