Piece Rate

[justanotherlocator]

What's the going opinion of being paid by piece rate rather than hourly? I hear that is a way alot on companies are moving.

[GODFATHER]

Yeah Consolidated does it down here. I personally wouldnt touch it with a 10ft pole!!!! Talk about screwing your employees over. Unless all you do is single lot tickets your screwed!!!!

[USIC1]

the twist could be a base pay no matter what...

that may be a deal breaker...

but management would give all the gravy to the newbs i guess so the vets would still be stuck with the dollar menu at the drive thru...

[underground quester]

What's the going opinion of being paid by piece rate rather than hourly? I hear that is a way alot on companies are moving.

Not sure. It would truly depend on what the piece meal percentage rate is and of course what the company will be paid.

Consolidated here in Alberta (yep, same company) just canned all of their piece meal work. Some of the locators were making $80,000.00K per year (Canadian $ is on par with the U.S. $) and had everyone go back to hourly. They then had a MASS EXODUS of experienced talent leave the company.

People who were on it say they "kicked ass" financially, but again I cannot say whether it is worth it or not as I do not know what you would earn per various type of ticket.

I will say though that the people on piece meal did work their asses off and when they were not working, they were billing the tickets. Pretty tiring.

[GODFATHER]

Yeah I think there would be a lot of in truck validation goin on there.... We all know that if we did the job as it should be done with no short cuts that the max tickets would be around 15-20 depending on how many utilities you locate and all being easy single address tickets. They now have implemented double accessing all HP utilities and when double accessing in a manhole you have to go down and take a picture of the cable your on and while in a X-box, etc the same follows. So they just made a lot of peoples jobs that much longer which I dont really care either way I get paid by the hour just when they start bitching that we arent gettin enough done and dont understand why then that is their problem to solve yet again....

[locomike]

i would go for base plus ticket bonus cause on them projects we would be SCREWED!!!

[Goldenboy]

It would be hard to get someone to help out on a big project if we had piece work. The supervisor would control how much money each guy would make by how he/she traded the tickets.

I get city trees called in each spring and fall. Normally 300-400 separate tickets for replacing city trees. I'd love to be on piece work when these tickets are called in but would hate it with all the VRADs in my area.

[yahoo]

no peace work down this way everyone would go back to the oil field and work........it would work out against us in the end...........it would become a bone-us

[GODFATHER]

V-rads blow monkey sac!!!! We have had that going on now for the past year along with a total Cox rebuild.....

[Wingfoot]

What's the going opinion of being paid by piece rate rather than hourly? I hear a lot of companies are moving [to piece rate].

justanotherlocator must have had a crystal ball............. A lot of shit @ USIC has transpired since justanotherlocator opened this thread.

1.) 31 March 2008 - A $7 billon investment firm, Kohlberg & Company, acquires SM&P and CLS to form USIC.

2.) Early 2009 - The decades-old individual "Quality Bonus Program" was re-instated. SWEET!

3.) 2009 - Wages frozen and a pilot GPS program instituted. Not sweet.....

4.) Early 2010 - Locators with a stellar performance record get a miniscule bump in wages.............

5.) Early 2010 - GPS installed company-wide in all work vehicles. NOT SWEET!

6.) Late 2010 - District Profitability Bonus pilot program (Equishare) was instituted for 2011. SWEET!

7.) Early 2011 - Noob locators get miniscule raises. Senior locator's wages frozen. NOT SWEET!

8.) August 2011 - Kohlberg & Company acquires CUS and adds it to the USIC family.
8a.) Many CUSers never reach 90 days as a USICer. Not sweet.....
8b.) Training = Here's your prints. Grab those additional colors of paint. Don't get anything cut. Not sweet.....
8c.) Veteran USICers immediately adjust to the additional plant. Not sweet.....

9.) November 2011 - Individual "Quality Bonus Program" cancelled. Not sweet.....

10.) November 2011 - "Equishare Bonus Program" cancelled. Not sweet.....

11.) January 2012 - Employee benefit deductions for locators almost triple and getting less coverage in return. Not sweet.....

Clark Griswald probably sez it best:

What does the future hold for USICers? Well, maybe justanotherlocator's premonition will prove true. Just when a person thinks, "It can't get any worse than this," middle management shoots a warning shot over the bow via email, "the corporate bean counters are planning a piece rate pilot program as early as March or April 2012 to work out the bugs........" No shit!

CUS had locators on piece rate for years. The program was voluntary and was sold to the un-suspecting locators on the catch phrase, "The sky is the limit! The more money YOU make, the more money WE make! Everybody wins!"

Well, believe it or not, that statement was complete bullshit.............. I know a CUS locator that volunteered for the piece rate. The pay rate was $2.50 per opportunity. His area was big, mostly aerial and he was responsible for everything except telephone and CATV. He had no GPS, enjoyed short work days, responded to the deep dig tickets only and pencil whipped 80% or more of his ticket load daily. For many months, his paychecks were in competition with his 2nd line. When the CUS bean counters became aware of the big paychecks, a rule was passed, "only tickets with digital photos of the completed locate get the full $2.50." The CUS locator figured a way to satisfy that requirement. When the paychecks didn't shrink, the bean counters passed a new rule, "Digital photos on every completed job and $25.00 per hour max pay for piece rate locators." The CUS locator figured a way to satisfy that requirement when the final rule was passed, "digital photos for every job, $25.00 per hour max pay and no paint locates pay $1.25 per opportunity to piece rate locators." His paychecks reached less than $15.00 per hour when he got the GPS'd work vehicle and then the CUS bean counters finally left him alone.................... This guy is a NAVY veteran who forgot the NAVY credence - Never Again Volunteer Yourself..............

USICers, look at your daily analysis Performance Dashboard. You know how hard you had to work for the locates per hour for the previous month. Take your current hourly wage and divide that by the number of locates per hour for last month to find your current wage per locate. See if $2.50 per painted opportunity and $1.25 per NLR will pay what you make today. That is some scary shit............... just sayin'.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[6feetunder]

justanotherlocator must have had a crystal ball............. A lot of shit @ USIC has transpired since justanotherlocator opened this thread.

1.) 31 March 2008 - A $7 billon investment firm, Kohlberg & Company, acquires SM&P and CLS to form USIC.

2.) Early 2009 - The decades-old individual "Quality Bonus Program" was re-instated. SWEET!

3.) 2009 - Wages frozen and a pilot GPS program instituted. Not sweet.....

4.) Early 2010 - Locators with a stellar performance record get a miniscule bump in wages.............

5.) Early 2010 - GPS installed company-wide in all work vehicles. NOT SWEET!

6.) Late 2010 - District Profitability Bonus pilot program (Equishare) was instituted for 2011. SWEET!

7.) Early 2011 - Noob locators get miniscule raises. Senior locator's wages frozen. NOT SWEET!

8.) August 2011 - Kohlberg & Company acquires CUS and adds it to the USIC family.
8a.) Many CUSers never reach 90 days as a USICer. Not sweet.....
8b.) Training = Here's your prints. Grab those additional colors of paint. Don't get anything cut. Not sweet.....
8c.) Veteran USICers immediately adjust to the additional plant. Not sweet.....

9.) November 2011 - Individual "Quality Bonus Program" cancelled. Not sweet.....

10.) November 2011 - "Equishare Bonus Program" cancelled. Not sweet.....

11.) January 2012 - Employee benefit deductions for locators almost triple and getting less coverage in return. Not sweet.....

Clark Griswald probably sez it best:

What does the future hold for USICers? Well, maybe justanotherlocator's premonition will prove true. Just when a person thinks, "It can't get any worse than this," middle management shoots a warning shot over the bow via email, "the corporate bean counters are planning a piece rate pilot program as early as March or April 2012 to work out the bugs........" No shit!

CUS had locators on piece rate for years. The program was voluntary and was sold to the un-suspecting locators on the catch phrase, "The sky is the limit! The more money YOU make, the more money WE make! Everybody wins!"

Well, believe it or not, that statement was complete bullshit.............. I know a CUS locator that volunteered for the piece rate. The pay rate was $2.50 per opportunity. His area was big, mostly aerial and he was responsible for everything except telephone and CATV. He had no GPS, enjoyed short work days, responded to the deep dig tickets only and pencil whipped 80% or more of his ticket load daily. For many months, his paychecks were in competition with his 2nd line. When the CUS bean counters became aware of the big paychecks, a rule was passed, "only tickets with digital photos of the completed locate get the full $2.50." The CUS locator figured a way to satisfy that requirement. When the paychecks didn't shrink, the bean counters passed a new rule, "Digital photos on every completed job and $25.00 per hour max pay for piece rate locators." The CUS locator figured a way to satisfy that requirement when the final rule was passed, "digital photos for every job, $25.00 per hour max pay and no paint locates pay $1.25 per opportunity to piece rate locators." His paychecks reached less than $15.00 per hour when he got the GPS'd work vehicle and then the CUS bean counters finally left him alone.................... This guy is a NAVY veteran who forgot the NAVY credence - Never Again Volunteer Yourself..............

USICers, look at your daily analysis Performance Dashboard. You know how hard you had to work for the locates per hour for the previous month. Take your current hourly wage and divide that by the number of locates per hour for last month to find your current wage per locate. See if $2.50 per painted opportunity and $1.25 per NLR will pay what you make today. That is some scary shit............... just sayin'.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You missed where Omers acquired USIC somewhere ther in the timeline, that's when the sh---it really hit the fan. Yeah I had heard the same thing about piece rate right after that big fancy meeting those big shots had at corporate. I love their latest excuse as to why they can't pay out the quality bonus as planned. The payout is over 1 million and we have to go to multiple investors and banks to try and get a loan to pay out the money, HAHHAHAH what a joke. The sad part and most insulting part is that they expect us to believe that. They could afford to pay bonuses and raises to the DM's and above. For a company that now generates around 500 million dollars a year, 1 million is a drop in the bucket, the upper management could probably pay that with the change in their pockets. Plain and simple folks, they are looking for more ways to pay us less so they can make " more for less ". That's what the more for less statement was really about. Don't expect anything good from these people, they could care less about their employees except the elite. We are simply peasants to them, worth nothing , we can be replaced with the snap of the fingers.

[orangeboots]

Wing dont quote me on this but almost everything in the piecerate pay is neogatied with each locator. The rate depends on what the contract pays You get a % of whatever usic gets. Also the25.00 isnt set in stone but you have to agree on pay for holidays and pto.

[The Big-E]

A good piece of advice... don't take the piece-rate without your current hourly rate being the least you would make.

justanotherlocator is a brilliant guy in the locating business... he knows his stuff... wish he would come back on here more often

I loved working for him...

[Wingfoot]

Wing - Don't quote me on this, but almost everything in the piece rate pay is neogatied with each locator. The rate depends on what the contract pays. You get a % of whatever usic gets. Also the $25.00 isn't set in stone. You have to agree on pay for holidays and pto.

Hey orangeboots - I agree. There are no details on the piece rate pilot program and anything at this point is speculative. But, let's face it. The non-producers in a piece rate system will be weeded out quickly. With my own two ears, I heard a middle management person make the statement, "My senior locators are the least productive. It seems like the longer they've been here, the slower they get. I can't understand it." If my ballz were bigger, I would have asked this person, "Why do you think that is so strange?" I guess when the piece rate program forces half of the "slower" veteran locators to leave, only then the answer will be obvious.

The very concept of piece rate locating vs hourly rate locating will change the way locators complete a locate. With locators being paid and graded by production numbers only, enhanced with the demise of all incentives to be damage-free, anybody with a fifth grade education knows what happens next. Any utility line buried deeper than an invisible dog fence is vulnerable. One-mile-long, single-ticket telephone drop tickets in the country? Forget about it! Project tickets? Don't make me laugh......................

This much is true. All the decisions on making the piece rate program a reality will be made by people that have not a clue what a locator does in the field to get the job done.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

[beyond help]

Hey orangeboots - I heard a middle management person make the statement, "My senior locators are the least productive. It seems like the longer they've been here, the slower they get. I can't understand it." If my ballz were bigger, I would have asked this person, "Why do you think that is so strange?" I guess when the piece rate program forces half of the "slower" veteran locators to leave, only then the answer will be obvious.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don't you love doing all the big jobs, but yet a ticket is just a ticket. It should only take a few minutes and that's it. It seems you have some big balls, just look at your pic in your skivies.