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  1. #46
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    Quote Originally Posted by beefy View Post
    Hi Eskimo,

    I mean if someone was working a forty hour week yet cannot pay basic bills, never mind luxuries, or getting a video at the weekend, or getting the car fixed, etc, etc, then they are just plain greedy ?? In our "developed" nation I think something is wrong when we have reached that level.

    Keith
    I think they are greedy as they never become satisfied with what they have...they want more and more...and usually give less

    If you dont want the job because of what they are offering... DONT TAKE IT...go find one to your liking,... you do not have to accept what is on offer!!

    IMO the $800 take home is well above the award..is it not?.....or what is the award payment for the position you applied for?

    Apologies if I offend anyone but my feelings are that we are all becoming far to greedy.

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  3. #47
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    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    If I was the OHS officer on the site I would boot them off for not wearing steel capped boots..

    you can talk tough cant you...

  4. #48
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    Quote Originally Posted by eskimo View Post
    All QC or QA did was that it allowed you to make the same stuff day in day out all year long,
    it had nothing to do with whether the product was bad, absolute crap or fantastic or anywhere in between

    you just needed to have the documentation to say that you can produce the same rubbish ....if that what it was
    How true! I own a Jayco caravan and Jayco has a recall at the moment because the 240V power input socket is installed in such a way that under certain circumstances it can fail and the whole caravan (al frame) will become live, just a minor one in other words.

    So, I look up the govt website where these recalls are listed and to my absolute astonishment this is the 4th Jayco recall so far for 2014!!!!!

    Just having a bad year you think?

    They had 6 last year and about the same the 5 or so years prior that I looked at

    Now, I have been to the Jayco factory and guess what they have several different ISO certificates hanging in their foyer to signify that they are serious about QA.

    Let's hope they are more serious about OH&S.

    It's all smoke and mirrors, just window dressing, it increases cost dramatically without any measurable benefit at the end.

  5. #49
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    Quote Originally Posted by .RC. View Post
    If I was the OHS officer on the site I would boot them off for not wearing steel capped boots.. You can be sure as hell they were not wearing them, but it was a site regulation...
    Been there with one of my staff about to go to sea on one of our ships. I just took her up to the work gear shop and had her pick out a pair of steel capped shoes, put them on my Visa card, job done.

    I'd love to see those posing pollies kicked off site for not wearing full protective clothing, sadly it would never happen.

    As for jobs for the dummies, how far back do you want to go? In the 18C better than 80% of the population worked the land producing food for the other 20%. Now it's more like 5% producing for the 95%. And *you* have the hide to say you won't employ anyone on the farm to help out!!!!! I'm engaging in faux outrage, incidentally - irony doesn't come across in the written word. I'm never going to employ anyone either, if I need something done I get a contractor to do it - and I'd make them sign their life away WRT liability etc if I thought there was any point in it.

    What you general run of employees don't realise is just how harsh some of the OH&S responsibilities are nowadays. I was liable for up to a $50,000 PERSONAL fine if someone got hurt and I could be held responsible for it, even if it was something very, very stupid. Now I no longer have any responsibility for staff, I'm a firm believer in Darwin Awards again. God knows I have my own collection of scars from near-miss stupidities I've perpetrated..... but only to my own body, not someone else's.

    PDW

  6. #50
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    Most of these OHS red tape problems come from the anglo-saxon law system, which allows everybody to sue everyone for often unreasonable astronomic compensation amounts. Your home burglar can sue you if in the night he falls into your swimming pool, and he may be awarded compensation because your pool fence did not comply with the OHS standard. This would be an unthinkable scenario in countries with a non anglo-saxon law system. It also puts me off when I see these ads from law firms, where they offer to take on marginal claims without fee, in return for half of the payout. At the end of the day, it is the community that has to pay these lawyer profits - in the form of liability insurance premiums and silly OHS laws designed to pass the liability risk onto someone else down the chain.

  7. #51
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    Quote Originally Posted by eskimo View Post
    I think they are greedy as they never become satisfied with what they have...they want more and more...and usually give less

    If you dont want the job because of what they are offering... DONT TAKE IT...go find one to your liking,... you do not have to accept what is on offer!!

    IMO the $800 take home is well above the award..is it not?.....or what is the award payment for the position you applied for?

    Apologies if I offend anyone but my feelings are that we are all becoming far to greedy.
    Well, at least in my case YOU ARE WRONG (I see you like shouting with capitals, so I'll join in the fun). Secondly I DID NOT TAKE IT. Thirdly I'M WELL AWARE I DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT WHAT IS ON OFFER, DID I IMPLY OTHERWISE AT ANY POINT (oh this shouting is fun).

    I find it very interesting how you equate greed with just needing enough to pay our rising cost of living. And how it being award or whatever seems to make everything rosy.

    You are also wrong about me wanting more and giving less. In business and in jobs I've held in the past I've always looked for opportunities to improve how things are done, with no reward of higher salary or business income. It's simply in my nature and I get a kick out of improving a process. It increases my job satisfaction.

    Take my little excavation business. I designed and built a few attachments that give more for the customer (no charge) but give nothing back to me apart from job satisfaction, and only the hope of future business. In fact I lose money because the job gets done faster with the help of these attachments. So as far as your thoughts on greed go, count me out of that one. My experience has been that I generally try to give more with little, if any return for my efforts and investment.

  8. #52
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    "dumb ass" people

    I don't want to be pedantic, but we are in Australia and the word is a r s e
    Last edited by robbo37; 16th July 2014 at 09:23 PM. Reason: Didn't like my word

  9. #53
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    Quote Originally Posted by beefy View Post
    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.


    You could always offer to go contract with an ABN and invoice them fortnightly / monthly. The going rate is $50.00 per hour and you can claim all the tax breaks that otherwise wouldn't be available to a PAYE. I think it's a bit of a grey area with the tax man if you are seen to derive over 80% of your income from the one source

  10. #54
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    Quote Originally Posted by Gestalt View Post
    I think it's a bit of a grey area with the tax man if you are seen to derive over 80% of your income from the one source
    I thought they tightened that up a few years ago. I didn't think you could do it anymore?

    Simon
    Girl, I don't wanna know about your mild-mannered alter ego or anything like that." I mean, you tell me you're, uh, super-mega-ultra-lightning babe? That's all right with me. I'm good. I'm good.

  11. #55
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    Quote Originally Posted by simonl View Post
    I thought they tightened that up a few years ago. I didn't think you could do it anymore?

    Simon

    Maybe they have Simon. I'm about four years behind in my returns. I've been contracting for years.

  12. #56
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    Quote Originally Posted by beefy View Post
    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.

    Sorry Keith wrong on all counts, yes you sent out the bait and I took it.

    I have been self employed for nearly 20 years have 3 people working for me and we are in the retail industry that does not pay high wages like you assume you should get.
    When we had a vacancy we had quite a few trades people apply for the job but when the reality of what they would be getting paid they politely said no thanks.
    They had big commitments from earning big wages and now had to come down to earth with a reality check that they will be living beyond their means.
    We do have the extremes like you as we need customers coming in the door every day, but the reality of retail is that you can have days where the phones hardly ring and the door bell does not ring, yet I still have to pay wages and a mortgage, all the things that we need for a normal week.

    In geelong there is going to be a glut of overpaid labourers looking for work when Alcoa and Fords close their doors.
    The skills they have are not trade skills, but skills they have picked up on the job and moved up the promotion ladder. Unfortunatley those skills are of no use anywhere else and there is no other industry in geelong that can absorb those workers.

    In your case as a trade person you have the ability to go where the work is .

    In our case there is times where I could have easily closed the doors, but I love my work , I enjoy the people I work with and we have a large range of customers who class us as freinds. We will keep going but in the knowledge that we will never be rich we are comfortable in our house with a moderate mortgage we own our 12 year old cars, our children are in Uni so still getting parent handouts, me complain , never, well maybe sometimes but would not change it for quids.

    I would love your $810 a week.
    Jim Carroll
    One Good Turn Deserves Another. CWS, Vicmarc, Robert Sorby, Woodcut, Tormek, Woodfast
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  13. #57
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    Quote Originally Posted by beefy View Post
    Well, at least in my case YOU ARE WRONG (I see you like shouting with capitals, so I'll join in the fun). Secondly I DID NOT TAKE IT. Thirdly I'M WELL AWARE I DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT WHAT IS ON OFFER, DID I IMPLY OTHERWISE AT ANY POINT (oh this shouting is fun).

    I find it very interesting how you equate greed with just needing enough to pay our rising cost of living. And how it being award or whatever seems to make everything rosy.

    You are also wrong about me wanting more and giving less. In business and in jobs I've held in the past I've always looked for opportunities to improve how things are done, with no reward of higher salary or business income. It's simply in my nature and I get a kick out of improving a process. It increases my job satisfaction.

    Take my little excavation business. I designed and built a few attachments that give more for the customer (no charge) but give nothing back to me apart from job satisfaction, and only the hope of future business. In fact I lose money because the job gets done faster with the help of these attachments. So as far as your thoughts on greed go, count me out of that one. My experience has been that I generally try to give more with little, if any return for my efforts and investment.
    firstly my use of capitals was to emphasise something and not yell! So stop implying to the rest of the forum i was....if i was yelling at you it all would be capitalised


    i note you did not answer if the take home pay offered is well above the award....I put it to you that it is!

    i await your reply

  14. #58
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Carroll View Post

    In our case there is times where I could have easily closed the doors, but I love my work , I enjoy the people I work with and we have a large range of customers who class us as freinds. We will keep going but in the knowledge that we will never be rich we are comfortable in our house with a moderate mortgage we own our 12 year old cars, our children are in Uni so still getting parent handouts, me complain , never, well maybe sometimes but would not change it for quids.

    I would love your $810 a week.
    As would I. I have never worked out just what i make an hour, it would not be much

    We used to have 9 staff, now we are down to 4.

    The Retail award here is about $17/h, with casual loading it comes out at a touch over $22. Plus add to that super (9.5% and rising), and workers comp(3% for us).

    I supliment our business earnings with work in the shed. Its the only way to get ahead, and buy tools......

    Ew
    1915 17"x50" LeBlond heavy duty Lathe, 24" Queen city shaper, 1970's G Vernier FV.3.TO Universal Mill, 1958 Blohm HFS 6 surface grinder, 1942 Rivett 715 Lathe, 14"x40" Antrac Lathe, Startrite H225 Bandsaw, 1949 Hercus Camelback Drill press, 1947 Holbrook C10 Lathe.

  15. #59
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    Good evening everybody.
    just read this thread from the beginning to end, I would like to put my fifty cents in. well last weekend I helped my mum pack up the last of the bits and pieces for there move to Brisbane, I found my first pay slip in a box of pay slips dad has kept- at the moment i'm going through them to show my daughter what we were paid

    1983 Woolworths trollies pusher, December school holidays, hour rate $3.89 no tax
    1985 Start electrical app "group Board" - $4.15 p/h min Tax
    1986 switched trades Boilermaker/blacksmith App group Board" - $3.90 p/h min Tax
    1987 second year $4.10 p/h + $60 Tool allowance
    1988 third year $4.85 /h + $85 tool allowance
    1999 joined the Army, Trade allowance $6.98 p/h - 3 meals a day, bed, bath, rifle, clothing, orders, and brain supplied all green
    can't remember the next two Years and no payslips that I can find
    1993 weekly pay slips around $425.69
    1994 parole for good behaviour left army - unemployed - rode GS1000 around Australia
    for the next couple of years I worked for many people welding for food and bed as i travelled
    1996 fell in love, got married and became a dad to a little Girl, weekly income avg - $2500 per week - contractor
    1999 do viced weekly income $0.00
    From 2000 to 2012 around $560 take home
    From 2012 to now, I have been working for the same family, in the beginning delivering bread and papers to the Pioneer Valley Shops, and out to the 3 mines, Nebo and Glenden, 600km a day, 6 days a week on a hour rate, the boss asked me one day what would I like to be payed on a fixed income In the new part of the company and I told him - $24 p/h + holidays + super + clothing + 10 days sick leave and I live in one of the boss houses. I do over time but I don't asked for pay. why because im well looked after, I try to live in my means.

  16. #60
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    Quote Originally Posted by eskimo View Post
    i note you did not answer if the take home pay offered is well above the award....I put it to you that it is!

    i await your reply
    I did in a way. Re. my words:

    And how it being award or whatever seems to make everything rosy.

    Above award, below award, so what, I don't give a toss. I simply work on figures, input and output, do the numbers make it possible ?. What if someone decided $2/hr is award wages ? Oh great I get $2.50 which is above award. I don't even know what the award figures are based on and I don't care. I just look at cost of living and what is needed to get by, bearing in mind mortgage interest rates are at an all time low and could rise at some point, I don't believe in "hoping" they won't.

    This thread has been extremely interesting and it has indeed been a reality check for me. As a matter of fact, since finding out that a job I would have loved cannot support my family until the wife can go to work, I've been feeling quite devastated, I will never get that opportunity again. I also really like the guy who owns the shop. It has also created a lot of fear in me, that if I cannot improve my business income through other avenues, life looks like just scraping by. It has gave me a new resolve that the difficulties and risk in business may be worth it after all if you can achieve more than the equivalent of an award wage. I have no idea why the word "award" is used.

    I see one thing very clearly as time goes by. Australian wages are buying less and our standard of living is going down, while the "3rd world" countries around us are going up.

    Keith.

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