Pay scale compared to other Industries

unfortunately I dont think we are going to get many white, american guys to do roofing anymore, unless we change our ways. I believe this for a few reasons. First the invasion from the south and the willingness of the employers to hire them at a much lower rate has driven the average white guy to the couch or walmart to find a job. Low wages, a position that offers no self esteem and many, many willful health violations leaves the roofing industry with little to choose from in the empolyment line. That is why I am an advocate for paying fair wages. If we are to retain any young, white people in the industry we have to clean-up our industry and retrain ourselves to raise our prices, offer a better service and a cleaner appearance. I know most of you might be saying "well I do That Already". It's not you I m talking. It's the industry as a whole. Many of the white employees I see working for other companies look like they just woke up, didnt brush their teeth, smell like urine, scraggly beard(nothing wrong with facial hair) and they wear shorts with their left nut hanging out. Come on, what kind of image is that. We,ve all seen it. It has to stop. With the types of roofs being installed today, with the technolgy used to install and the safety feature everyone should be using we should be attracting our share of clean cut kids to take over Not every kid coming out of high school is going to go to college and become a doctor, lawyer, accountant, politician or some other white collar employees. 70-80% arne't even going to go or finish college. So where arte they going? I'll tell this. They have no direction and you know MOM and DAD are not saying "Son, roofing is a good profession". But we can change that. Might take 20 years. We need to attend the high school job fairs and show them the advancements in the industry. The diversity of jobs from front office, sales, PMs, supers,foremen, journeymen, trainees, distribution, manufacturing , marketing and adversting. Its a whole industry. we need to lead them back to roofing and show them that it is a worhty profession or careerpath to take. I know for the past 15- 20 years we have dumped and blamed many of our problems on our neighbors to the south. I m all for some type of immagration bill, but let me tell you this. Most of the Mexicans that I've hired(legally of course) are the epitome of what kind of employee I would be looking for. Unless I've been extremely lucky, I've had self respcting ,hardworking, trainable employees that have moved thru my system from trainnees to supers. Infortunately most of them have moved on to the other trades and if we hire any hispanics they are guatamalans, hondurans,venezuelans, and such mostly peons and farmers with out the same ethics as the mexicans. What to do.....

Soldierboy describes what a journeyman was for us, some 20 yrs ago....Not today! There are none! I recall running 20 +/- roofers, 10-15 framers, AND building spec houses, all concuurrently with no super! Never happen today...It would be a nightmare.

Recent story;

Hired two "roofers". Both do have 5 yrs experience, and are able to exhibit good technical roofing skills.....However....Neither one can drive a company truck, due to no DL's. Sent a carpenter/helper with them to drive. They left the van at the shop chock full of debris/etc. tools intertwined amongst debris....took me an hour to clean/straighten it out....THEN! They turn in their time; 8:30 - 5:30...They got to the job at 11:00AM left at 4:30PM....

(I had them show up at the shop, at 8:30, so I could forcible get them to complete their application packages, which I"ve been trying for a week, to get from them.....The fiddle-farted around until 9:30/10 until they left).

So, I tell them the other dasy, this has to be a give & take situation; I'm paying a driver to transport them, as well as a vehicle and the fuel/costs required. I'll be dammed if I'm going to pay them to ride back & forth to the jobs....If that's the way it works and you want $18/hr....You get yourselves to the job.....They couldn't make it the next day, as they had no gas.....

I don't think I saved my reply. :-(

What they talked about was the shortage of workers that we will have. In the millions the baby boomers are retiring and leaving the workforce. We already have a problem getting 20 somethings to join our ranks that have heads on their shoulders. Even getting the young ones to come aboard they may still leave for the jobs that will be open in the next 5 years. Without all of my notes and proper DATA in front of my this is just of the top of my head as far as the numbers.

soldierboy Said: I would say that our shop tops out at $22.00 for the field worker. Thats for someone that can take a work order from start to finish. 1. Set Job up 2. Order Materials 3. Get Crew out to site in a timely fashion 4. Solve any problems on the site without further supervision 5. Fill out time sheets 6. Complete final inspections of his jobs.

That requires skill on all levels.

Where are you at?

Everywhere I've worked, short of the filling out of time sheets, you've mostly described the Superintendent's job.

For what you're talking $wise, it would have to come with a very nice benefit package to get a journeyman here to even think about it, and there aren't many real journeyman anymore.

Granted, as a foreman and/or service tech, I've usually made more than the Supers...

"After attending this years International Roofing Expo the picture doesn't look like it's going to get any better in the future."

Care to elaborate?

After attending this years International Roofing Expo the picture doesn't look like it's going to get any better in the future. TomB has a point with the PW work and what the Unions pay scale is. I would say that our shop tops out at $22.00 for the field worker. That's for someone that can take a work order from start to finish. 1. Set Job up 2. Order Materials 3. Get Crew out to site in a timely fashion 4. Solve any problems on the site without further supervision 5. Fill out time sheets 6. Complete final inspections of his jobs.

That requires skill on all levels.

Rocky; As to wages, we appear to have somewhat similar philosophies.....Unfortunately we all must deal with several "dynamics" working against us....The most obvious is the "Walmart" mentality of consumers and what comes along with that; The cheapest labor available, (i.e., the illegal workforce).

I've sort of been there - done that...80+ employees, big shop, multliple locations, etc....Now I'm a little guy in the mountains, just plugging along....I tend to pay my employees slightly more than my competitors. Always have. The current private sector wage scale is apxs. 50% of what it should be....A great comparative tool is the prevailing wage scales....For instance; In a particular area the average hrly rate for "journeyman" roofers is $18-20/hr....Whereas, across the street on a gov't property, the prevailing rate is $44/hr.....It used to be much closer, say, back in the early 80's.

Several years ago I was speaking with a competitor who was on his way out, retiring.....He commented on how the scenery was changing so. Used to , he said; The parking lot at the shop was full of nice trucks, young guys/new families, buying their first home, etc....Now it's broken-down sedans full of sloppy, (I won't say it), broke-down types, with...."how musch jew pay"?...the first thing out of their mouth.....Not a pretty picture.

Yes it would be nice to attract more clean-cut industrious types...However, we're a dying breed....

To Egg, thanks for the kind words, you bring a tear to my eye, sinecerly. It's true, we, not I, have built a good base in our market place. Yes, I spent many years on the ladder climbing to get to where I'd like to get to. I'm not there yet, but getting close. My question that started this topic was about employee wages and how they compared with our comtemporaries in the other industries. Why do I ask? A little background on me....... During my teenage years, back in the late sixties and early seventies, in the the great City of Detroit, my father used to flip houses. Of course they didnt call it "flip' back then. Most of the house were 2 story bungaloes and almost all of them, 8/12 or more, needed roof work. Sure enough, being the eldest of three sons I was always the one who had to tie a rope to the fireplace and go up and patch, repair or replace the roofs. Not wanting or liking this type of work and danger, at my earliest convenience, I high tailed it out of there. I packed up and moveed out. Because I was so smart I quit school and went to work in a sheet metal shop. $3.75 an hour, boy was I happy. That was in "73". I went thru a dozen jobs, got married, had 2 lovely daughter's and a son still in the gun. when in "84" a landed a job in Phoenix, AZ. on a tear-off crew. Rode that job for few years. Hard, dirty work and HOT. Some days the temp was 115-118 and the roof was much hotter. Over the next 15 years or so I learned how to do metal, shingles, sprayed alot of foam, torch, Sap. I learned to be a foreman, a supervisor, salesman and a sub-contractor but I never touched a hot mop job except as a super on a 2200sq facorty outlet store in Casa Grande. "2002" I started Distinctive Roofing in Phoenix. Mostly because I was subcontracting for a couple of contractors who screwed me out of my money and I vowed that would happen again In Arizona you have to be licensed to be a roofer and GC's are not allowed to do roofing except shingles. The rest of the story is evolving from "2002" to the present and is in my website, which needs to be update/d. Phew, long winded. All along the way I always thought I was under payed and I said to myself that if I ever own my own business I was going to pay people what they were worth comparing their experience to the most important trades of home building, or the ones that were required to be licensed. I feel roofers 1-5 years should be comparable to a plumber digging ditches, 5-10 years is an electrician that can wire a whole house 10-15year roofer shoud make as much as the hvacman that can r&r coils, crane units up and down, or an accountant that works for a CPA. They're just bean counters. Now some roofers learn faster and some may never develop, but you pay them accordingly. We need good men in our trade, trustworthy people. The days of wearing shorts so short that your nails are hanging out are over. The guy that looks like he just got off a matress with no sheets on it are out. WE need to clean up our people, our orginazation and present a professional appearance to the client, and reward the people that work for us properly. What we give comes back tenfold.

Enough for now......

Union hourly pay scales are fairly even for those four trades. What's not even is the number of hours able to be put in annually for those trades. The predominately indoor trades will always be able to put in more hours per year. That applies in good times, right now all construction trades are hurting. My wife's friend's husband is an electrician that two years ago was making upwards of $35 per hour. Right now, he's an assistant produce manager for a grocery store making around $12.

A couple of years back, I overheard a newly hired guy for one of the larger residential electric companies talking and was surprised that he was earning less than my starting pay. But then, I've heard other electricians referring to that company as Jr high for electricians.

I don't worry about what other people are paying, my only concern is paying the employees I have enough to keep them satisfied.

The pay scale difference is fairly consistent, anywhere....Your best bet is to simply check prevailing wage scales, (via Davis Bacon scales),...That pretty-much mirrors the private sector, as for comparative differences...."Mechanical" trades are traditional higher pay scale....Although the illegal workforce was being utilized more & more in the Ele/Plumb residential aspects, bringing down/stifling those wages.

Unlike roofing, concrete, rough carpentry, etc, that have suffered stagnation.....HVAC, appears to be a fairly safe haven for the working stiff.

Everybody gets less than electricians around here. No idea why they are held in such high esteem. hvac gets the same or more but they put out about half the amps. Plumbers are all over the price map.

I took the time to look at your website and it certainly appears that you have played your cards well and have already built an institution of sorts that you can be quite proud of. For one reason and another, many of us who frequent here have a different kind of vision of how we want to interface our trade persona with the world, me included, but not everyone here by any means. There are no doubt many who would, ought to be jealous of your achievement and I have no doubt that if you stick around long enough to foster some genuine relationships, your observations will be greatly appreciated. Looking forward to seeing how it all unfolds. You have my welcome.

The calls kept coming because of the good quality and service, now I have 55 employees and the service is not quite the same and of course,less personable. But the calls keep coming.

No employees. I fired them all about 20 years ago. :laugh: