Currently having wage disputes at work, was reminded of a practice I heard about a few years back, thought I’d share.
My industry has companies called systems integrators, and their job is to essentially design and build large scale production facilities using third party hardware and software. This is a niche business in my industry, only around 15 or so companies like this exist in the UK.
These companies hire self-employed contractors called wiremen on a day rate of about £200 a day. The wiremen have a bloody tough job, making up and running hundreds of thousands of cables throughout a building. Their wages have been this rate for years, and here’s why.
All of the CEO’s and MD’s of these companies are friendly with each other, and they all agree on a top level day rate. They pay no more than this rate, so that in effect, there is no competition for wiremen anymore, and the management essentially control the earnings.
This is where free-market capitalism massively fails. The end result is stagnant wages for wiremen, and there is nothing they can do about it. What are they gonna do, go earn more elsewhere? :/
The reason I was reminded of this is because my company I think are doing the same. But we’ve been smart and banded together. Theres a bunch of us all now demanding better, as we are all salaried. But self employed wiremen? Who are all effectively competing with each other? Much harder to organise.
This shit has got to stop.