My company recently organized a conference and had to hire audio-visual (AV) services company to provide mics and such. They billed us $170/hour for labor costs (in addition to equipment rental charges, etc) but are actually paying the AV techs on site a small fraction of it.
I don’t know exactly how much but one of the AV techs I discussed it with was outright shocked when I told him how much their company was billing for labor. His exact words were “even if you take away that 1 in $170/hour I’m still not getting that much”.
I thought it was pretty outrageous but I’m reluctant to bring it up because I don’t want to get the guy in trouble (I know it’s his legal right to discuss his salary but it could still have negative consequences for him and that has to be his choice rather than me “outting” him).
Im trying to give that company the benefit of doubt, so perhaps there are other costs the company is including in their labor charge?