Thread: Offered a machine shop job but shocked at the pay offer

Originally Posted by beefy

I was offered a job in the Melbourne region in a machine shop. CNC lathe and machining centres, manual lathes and mills, cnc plasma cutter, surface grinders, welders, etc.

The job was full time (38 hours) and I would have loved it, I took out a five year loan for all my manual machines, then I built a cnc plasma, etc. So let's just say my heart is in it.

I've been running my own business for 15 years now so had no idea about what people in a job come out with in their hand. Anyway all I would have got was $810 in my hand, and their's no way I could pay our basic outgoings with that. Mortgage, bills, fuel, food, car, you now how it all goes. Wife looks after our 2 lads and if she worked it would be negated by child care fees so that's not an option to top things up.

I was told the top guys in the machine shop earn very little more than what I was offered. Quite unbelievable considering the knowledge and skill in the industry.

Is this the state of our standard of living nowadays, or is this just machine shop pay rates. I've certainly learnt that unless you get the right job, the word JOB does mean JUST OVER BROKE (in my case it would have been well under broke LOL).

Both myself and the shop owner were extremely disappointed when things couldn't work out.

Keith.

So you are earning about a $1000.00 per week including sick leave, holiday pay, superanuation paid for you and yet you still complain. You work your 38 hours then go home to your family without the worry about where the work is coming from just so long as you can put your hand out at the end of the week.

I think some one needs a reality check or stay on the dole which covers nothing of the above.

Originally Posted by .RC.

You can not find a mechanic shop around here that would work for less then $100 an hour...

So why is the cost of wages and the cost the consumer pays is so great...

I have a working theory it is because of the cost to run a business and the thousand rules and regulations in place that have to be complied with which costs huge money...

I know where I am, there is no way we could legally employ anyone as our workplace would be considered so dangerous we are unable to comply..
It is not that our workplace is dangerous, but that society's expectations have changed so much they expect us to either comply with the rules, or the industry should cease to exist and go to another country and import the product.. Which leads to less jobs, more people on welfare (as there are no jobs for them to do any more)

Having done some minor work in a more mainstream job, I found the paperwork and regulations are massive and require employees just to be employed solely to comply with government (society) mandated rules and regulations..

It is easy to complain about wages we get, but we are all part of the problem, and there is no solution that would satisfy everyone..

Yep, cost of compliance is a big one. Work just put me through a dogman course because safework said i need to have it to lift anything that dosen't have defined lifting points with the gantry crane at work. The course cost $1200 dollars + my wages for a week + lost production. The stupid thing is the course focused on directing a mobile crane and there was very little about slinging loads properly. I think that many employes just think that they cost their boss the hourly rate they are on, but in reality it is much more eg. holidays, super, work cover, unproductive time, etc.

snapatap and jim carroll have good points.

Been on both sides of the fence. Worked for Army, what i describe as semi govt, private industry and now working for myself.

Left a job in Melb several years ago that I Could have easily had the long term for one who offered more back here in Bendigo. The old case of being able to sustain ones self and have some sort of life. Was able to live a lot cheaper here than Melb.

These days on the average week, by the time wages are paid and all the rest of the costs that goes along with hiring and running a shop..... well yeah. Some weeks i get less than the hired help. Also they can just go for the day and not have the hassle.

A lot of the time if I charge more, then just wont get the work.

You basically have to be able to read your customer and decide on the fly as to what you can get away with charging.

I'm fortunate in that my overheads are low. Would need $50 - 60 K a year (be it lease or loan) to have the equivalent in town. That is workshop plus decent sized yard. Less stress for me not having to find that kind of coin.

There's pluses and minuses regardless of which side of the fence you are on. Know a couple of sheeties who I would consider to be around 10 years shy of retirement age who literally told me it had gotten too hard to run a full on shop. So they got out of running their own show.

Do I see any improvement in the situation whether you be boss or employee. Not in the foreseeable future.

Firmly believe its a case of the other irons you have in the fire that will help carry you over later on. My "day" job by itself certainally wont.

Originally Posted by snapatap

Yep, cost of compliance is a big one.

You are just in the wrong industry...

Lets play spot the safety violations in my vid LOL


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4p0g6NeUcI

Interesting input everyone.

Jim, I was waiting for you, the guy who would come and say I'm complaining. I hope you have a job that gives you $400 a week in your hand and your life is still bliss. I think we should live in tiny caravans so we can escape mortgage costs, escalating bills, escalating fuel prices, etc. We should jog to work, etc, etc. Stating the gross income makes it look more rosy but super does not pay the weekly costs, and neither does the tax we pay, so just keep it at the $810 I mentioned, eh. Our mortgage is a cheap one and immediately takes up half of that amount. As for a reality check I've had a good deal of that having my own business for 15 years, it hasn't been a nice ride at all, and there's been plenty occasions where I've been living in fear with a couple of hundred in the bank and bills coming up in the thousands. I wouldn't be surprised if my reality has been a lot harsher than yours. As was said earlier, our standard of living is quickly going down. All sorts of basic living costs are going up fast while wages are doing not much at all.

Complaining doesn't really have anything to do with it, it's simply a matter of noting what an industry pays for what it expects from the employee, and what our cost is living is now. Its sad when a qualified and experience machine shop employee is going to live a pretty meagre existence if the wife cannot work too. I came here to ask if that is normal for machine shop employees, which I would consider a knowledgeable and responsible job. Whatever Australia used to be, it's no longer the land of milk and honey, and it looks like it's getting worse, but I'm glad you are happy with our dwindling lifestyle.

For all our creativity and inventiveness, I think our western world is full of absolute stupidity, and we are putting ourselves on a path of destruction. We stifle our productivity with ever increasing rules and regulations that drive up costs massively, and make everything take 3 times as long. We focus on university degrees to try and get jobs where maybe 10% of what was learnt is used, IF the job is related to the degree, what a horrid waste of time and money. which could be used so much more constructively. Common sense & self-responsibility is being replaced by "who can be made responsible", and it's great to be a lawyer nowadays. Trade type jobs are being made to look dirty & undesirable and only for uneducated people who can't get a degree. The latest I heard was about changing tyres on some massive loader. What used to take 6 hours now takes 3 days due to regulations, paperwork, and several different trades being required. Unions drain the economy in many ways, I bet it's only a matter of time before the country cannot support them any more and they will be cracked down on like happened in the UK years ago.

If nobody brings these matters up in conversation, nothing really gets noticed, and nothing ever changes. Regarding complaining, many changes often happen through dissatisfaction. I myself aim for a better lifestyle instead of just having one of your "reality checks" and accepting whatever is thrown at me. I may not get there but at least I'll try.

And what are you talking about "stay on the dole". I've NEVER collected any dole even when I could have, I simply focussed on trying to get my business going, of which I am an employee and therefore could have collected dole when I had no wage, and was living of my savings from working away in the jungles of Indonesia.

Keith.

Yes cost of "compliance" is getting worse. There isnt mush here a worker can come to grief on, yet it took 3 visits to get rid of the w*nksafe guy. Anymore and he may have gone crosseyed Of course there was a cost to putting some very minor things "right". Think he ran out of nitpicking s*hit to finding in the end.

It goes on.

Wouldnt wanna run an operation where there is some serious gear that could really mangle someone, or have workers operating in situations that are deemed dangerous.

It will only end unless we band together and start bringing back some commonsense back into the equation. What's that, start with burning lawyers!!!!

At the end of the day the system will collapse if we all get put out of earning a living by this unsustainable state of affairs. I certainally wouldnt want to be starting out again as a young person.

Originally Posted by Jim Carroll

So you are earning about a $1000.00 per week including sick leave, holiday pay, superanuation paid for you and yet you still complain. You work your 38 hours then go home to your family without the worry about where the work is coming from just so long as you can put your hand out at the end of the week.

I think some one needs a reality check or stay on the dole which covers nothing of the above.

That's a bit harsh! Keith just said he had been running his own business for 15 years. A "good wage" is different for different people. If he had been earning 2K a week then going to 1K a week would be very difficult. I makes no matter what you earn, you adjust your lifestyle to accompany your wage. If you all of a sudden had to halve your wage, it would be very difficult no matter what that wage was. To compare it to the dole (which was never mentioned) is irrelevant. I would not expect the dole to cater for superannuation or sick leave, holiday pay etc. etc. Simon

Originally Posted by jatt

Yes cost of "compliance" is getting worse. There isnt mush here a worker can come to grief on, yet it took 3 visits to get rid of the w*nksafe guy. Anymore and he may have gone crosseyed Of course there was a cost to putting some very minor things "right". Think he ran out of nitpicking s*hit to finding in the end.

It goes on.

Wouldnt wanna run an operation where there is some serious gear that could really mangle someone, or have workers operating in situations that are deemed dangerous.

It will only end unless we band together and start bringing back some commonsense back into the equation. What's that, start with burning lawyers!!!!

At the end of the day the system will collapse if we all get put out of earning a living by this unsustainable state of affairs. I certainally wouldnt want to be starting out again as a young person.

It is unfortunate that OH&S and other systems of compliance have a negative impact on business, however I'm sure if you asked any of the families of workers who have been killed or seriously injured in the workplace, they would have a different view. I would hate to know how much my employer has spent on me with training, equipment and PPC to ensure I finish my shift in one piece but I'm sure my wife and kids appreciate it. I've attended quite a few workplaces where people weren't coming home. While some people admittedly do deserve a Darwin award, there are many that were just didn't deserve it. It's never a dignified death either! Simon

We only have all this worksafe / OH&S stuff because of our nice comfortable living in the Western world. People talk of rights & entitlements like it's a birthright. If we look back in history though, before we had it easy, we went to war and died in thousands, people would have died regularly on job sites, etc, etc. I think we are having a good attempt at sending ourselves back to such hard times.

Unions and OH&S have a place but only when a realistic balance is in place. What's the point if it kills business to the extent that we start going backwards, which is clearly happening now. I reckon China thinks we are complete idiots (no I'm not say we should be like them, they are the complete opposite). I get email related to manufacturing and the talk is always about "synergy", efficiency, etc. We wipe out those possibilities with our own BS.

This is how the OH&S system is nothing but a paper game in my industry, and does absolutely nothing for safety. All they want is my signature saying I understand everything. I go to a new job site and first thing is the induction. I have to read through a bunch of papers explaining everything about the site, the rules, etc. I sign the papers and they've got what they wanted (do I remember everything I had to quickly read ???). Then there's the JSA where you have to document stupidly obvious things that only a complete moron would do. Like writing it down is going to stop it happening. They now have my signatures which is all they want so they are covered, they have complied with the OH&S paperwork, and I'm the one who is liable. Once I get out and start the job, everything goes out the window, the barricades aren't used because they impede the job, the safe distance is never kept from my machine because it would impede the job, the list goes on. Is there any site guy checking we are doing everything as per the JSA, never. Morons have quickly took a shortcut behind my machine and would have been crushed on the solid concrete wall if I hadn't took evasive action. Safety is mainly ensured by our careful and watchful eyes and ears, not writing and signatures on paper. The worst thing is if I attempted to enforce everything that the work site rules said, and what the JSA said, they'd get a new sub-contractor next time who didn't "cause problems". Businesses are just trying to compete and get through the job.
I've even done inductions where we sign the papers before we read them, or procedures which are clearly stated are not carried out because of the inconvenience, yet I'm the one who's liable if anything were to happen. It's basically a case of sign your life away agreeing to whatever, or don't expect any work from us next time. What do I do, go out of business. The overall problem I see is there is no practicality, just "go through the motion" procedures, and documentation that needs someones signature.

Keith.

Originally Posted by simonl

It is unfortunate that OH&S and other systems of compliance have a negative impact on business, however I'm sure if you asked any of the families of workers who have been killed or seriously injured in the workplace, they would have a different view. I would hate to know how much my employer has spent on me with training, equipment and PPC to ensure I finish my shift in one piece but I'm sure my wife and kids appreciate it. I've attended quite a few workplaces where people weren't coming home. While some people admittedly do deserve a Darwin award, there are many that were just didn't deserve it. It's never a dignified death either! Simon

True Simon, but what about the families of those killed and maimed in factories China where our goods are made because their standards are not the same as ours, yet there are no restrictions on importing these goods to Australia.. Should we turn a blind eye to these people killed/maimed to produce our goods at a low price simply because they live in a different country?

OHS is just a small bit of the larger pie of the cost of compliance we have today..

Hi Keith (Beefy) well, you have no argument from me with that. There does have to be a balance. I'm not big on paperwork either yet we are supposed to do a site induction everytime we work at a new location. So many boxes to tick and it's all BS. I do stand by what I said wrt safety in the workplace but I concede in many ways it has become more of a burden than perhaps it should. My workplace is no different, we have folders full of procedures that we have to follow. We even have a procedure to follow for when you have not followed a procedure Then we are expected to follows these procedures in time critical and often stressful situations. In some cases our employer makes it very difficult for us to follow them. One such procedure is we must have a minimum 4 crew on scene before we can enter a structure fire in breathing apparatus, yet our minimum manning on an appliance is 3. That means hoping and waiting for a volunteer to turn up who is qualified in BA before we can enter. Been to one job where the wife and kids were outside and frantic because their house was on fire and the dad/husband was still inside, we only have the usual minimum of 3 on the truck. Do you really think I was going to tell her to wait until someone else turned up before we can commence S&R? Needless to say we broke the rules. Nothing came of it but if we had have been injured, you can imagine my employer, and workcover. Also, if I did that in an assessment I would have failed instantly! Hi R.C. yes I agree with you, but I have no solution. A life is a life is a life and it's worth the same no matter where you live. If that the cost of globalisation? We could put import tariffs on such countries but I think we are tying to go away from that. Simon

IMO I think people who complain about wages are just plain greedy and want too much!

there are also those who just want what those down the road has..a big new boat etc etc etc and go into debt to fund it....come on?
we are living beyond our means, and hence the push for higher and higher wages...it wont be long when we wont have any jobs as it will all be done off shore
The impending demise of the car industry should be a wake up call to these dumb ass people

rant over

Originally Posted by eskimo

The impending demise of the car industry should be a wake up call to these dumb ass people

The car industry is dying because every other country subsidises their car industry and/or puts up artificial barriers to competition..

Well everyone except guess who...

On top of that is the cost of production...

I wonder if anyone has considered what these estimated 40 000 people about to lose their jobs are going to do?

Some of the finest tools, machinery, cars etc come out of quite a few countries in Europe. Germany, Sweden (they make the best axes!), Swiss etc. etc. I never hear anyone complain about the prices paid for those items in industry. Now, I assume they are expensive because they are indeed very, very good. Surely they don't pay Chinese based wages to their employees and surely they too have a safe workplace?

Why can't we be the same? Why should we be forced to compete with China, Sure hell those countries don't. If you were looking to purchase a Volkwagen or a Merc or an Audi, you wouldn't also be looking at Great wall would you? Now I know not all those makes and models are probably made in Germany anymore but I think you get my point. Why can't we build a reputation for making the best? If we did, surely the money would follow?

WRT the car industry, even the manufacturers themselves said that wages weren't the biggest killer.

Simon