My uncle has been a building houses for over 15 years and two years ago he went his own way. He’s a great builder but terrible at employee management. He hired me as a day labourer during the summer and saw how his employees were working. We never mentioned that we were related to keep things more fair, as a labourer I was at the bottom. So my job was to fetch tools, carry, clean, and bring coffee/heat the lunch for the guys. They worked 4 hours out of the 10 and extended their paid 1 hour break by another hour, some would disappear when he went to his other sites or office, and they treated the company tools like garbage. In a week, we probably damaged about $1,500 worth of tools. When I spoke up about it, they responded with “don’t worry kid, it’s the boss man’s tools. He’s rich”. No my uncle isn’t rich, he makes 25% more than the guys after expenses and works 50% more hours with more stress. The only reason he’s in business is because of the housing boom here in Canada. And yes, he pays industry wages. I made $25/hour and his guys make anywhere from $25-$45/hour. With benefits and paid overtime