I posted in another topic concerning the taxes one pays verses the hours worked and the income earned…
As a Mechanic, do you earn overtime pay when your Flat Rate Hours exceed 40-hours a week?
Most auto repair shops quote labor charges using a “flat rate schedule” that provides the average time it takes an experienced technician to perform a given car repair. That flat-rate time is then multiplied by the shop’s hourly labor rate to reach the total labor charge for the service.
I do know that if a mechanic is very fast and completes the work in less time than the flat rate schedule states, the shop will in many cases charge the customer the flat rate hours. And on the other hand, if the mechanic is not so fast or runs into a issue (rusted/jammed bolt, etc…) the customer will not get the benefit of the flat rate schedule but will be charged for the extra time required to complete the work.
So, if these assumptions are incorrect, please feel free to chime in tell me so…
However, it has been stated that that some mechanics are getting 80 to 100 hours of work a week and I’m guessing that those mechanics are very knowledgeable and consequently very fast at work (no lost time trying figure what to do next…) and getting more hours than the 40-hour work week suggests.
So, the question is, if a mechanic is working the flat rate equivalent of 80 to 100 hours a week, are they getting overtime pay (time and a half…)? Or is that very first hour on a Monday morning they work earning then same exact amount they are earning in that last hour on Friday afternoon even though they have earned 80-plus hours of Flat Rate Schedule?
No. Dealership flat-rate mechanics are exempt from overtime pay. As they should be. You can’t pay both by production and by clock hours, it doesn’t make sense.
I recently had a conversation with 2 technicians who work at different dealerships of the same brand. Both are fairly equally trained and capable, do the same kinds of work, and are both physically healthy. Both produce 60 hours in an average week. Charlie gets to the shop at 7:30 and works until 6 or 6:30. Louie comes in at 9 and is out by 4. If paid overtime, Charlie would make more money despite Louie being more efficient.
Also, it’s customary (or not unusual) for a Journeyman technician to have an apprentice who he will train and teach, and the Journeyman will flag the hours that the apprentice produces as well. There’s a Major Manufacturer dealer in the area with 2 Journeymen flagging 400 hours per month. But pay like that is the exception and not the rule.
Yes, at least in any instance I was involved in. Now that’s not to say there won’t be unforeseen events. If there’s work that needs to be done that’s not part of the standard published repair information, the price goes up. For instance a normal water pump replacement does not include drilling out a seized or rusted bolt. But if I can’t demonstrate why a job took longer, the price stays the same.
Makes perfect sense. I would expect to pay more for those types of things.
Back when I owned my 3 valve Mustang GT, the shops would quote rather high prices to install new spark plugs since they’d break and need to be extracted.
Not to mention rust belt car service like alignments.
Lots of businesses, including apparently automotive repair shops, come up with all kinds of “creative” pay schemes to cheat the worker out of fair and reasonable pay. Every time this topic comes up, it astonishes me how much people bend over backwards to justify blatant wage theft, while pretending that it magically “improves” employee performance, or “encourages” technicians to be more efficient.
The bottom line is that in any successful business, the worker is paid a reasonable percentage of what they produce. And a reasonable worker expects to be paid reasonable wages if they are on the clock doing company business. Are there people who sit around, play with their phone, space out, etc. on company time? Absolutely, and these people should be dismissed, or offered lower wages to compensate for their poor productivity. But using this example to justify wage theft is beyond absurd.
Similarly, a lot of flat-rate and piecework-based pay schemes are designed to push the worker to perform at an unsustainable pace, which wears out their body prematurely. The employer, of course, does not compensate for the future pain and suffering, and loss of earning capability which results from pushing oneself beyond the limit. The goal should always be to earn a reasonable income, while doing a reasonable workload, at a reasonable pace, which ensures a good quality result, while protecting the worker’s health.
I can tell you that I would NEVER agree to work for any flat-rate, piecework, or commission-based pay scheme, because I feel that is unethical, and that it constitutes wage theft. I care about one thing: how much money am I grossing in a year compared to the time and effort that I am putting into the job, and compared to the profits and customer goodwill that I am generating. I don’t care how the money is broken down, whether it is based on clock time, book time, time on an alien planet, etc. Anything else is just a distraction to allow the company to bilk the worker out of his pay.
Back in the late '60, I was a machine mechanic at a Fuller Brush factory in Albany, NY. The factory had a chemical annex, but I worked in the Hair Brush/Broom department… All of the Hair Brush machines were operated by women and the Broom machines were operated by men. My job was to keep the machines running. Most of my work was just changing out dull drills (that drilled the holes for the tuffs of bristles) or straightening the Ram Heads that drove the tuffs of bristles into the holes must drilled.
All the machine operators were on piecework and most operated two machines at a time. Some of the really fast operators could easily earn two to three times, even four times minimum wage ($1.25 back then).
When a machine went down, the operator ran over to the timeclock to clock out their machine. When a machine was down, the operator drew a State Mandated Minimum Wage. Then the normal minimum wage was about $1.25, but if an employee such as a "Piece Worker, like a waiter/waitress who earned no tips, would get a minimum of 22-cents an hour.
When I worked a machine, I also had to clock my time. They were not checking me, but ensuring that the operator’s machine was really down and the operator’s down card matched up with mine or another macnine mechanic’s card. I guess some operator in earlier times clocked out their machines while they were still operating them so they could pick up an extra 22-cents an hour… My pay back then was $7.35 an hour. If the factory had not closed down and moved to Tucson, AZ for the cheaper labor, I probably would have stayed there my entire working life…
Well that’s precisely what flat-rate work provides. If you do low-quality work at a slow pace, you earn less. If you do high-quality work at a fast pace, you earn more money.
I will admit there is a sense of uncertainty with seasonal changes in work flow, but I suppose you could say that with hourly jobs as well. I know hourly people who get sent home when there’s no work.
At any rate, oppression of the working class is an old saw going back to the 1800s that has been largely discredited. Try as they will the revolution predicted has never come but they still try.
Not that there were never people that worked under deplorable conditions, but the reality is that people are free to make whatever employment choices they wish. It is simply a contract between employer and employee. If you don’t like your job or occupation or employer, you may make another choice…
I want employees treated fairly but I also want businesses to stay in business. It’s a hard struggle. Like my fil used to say, you can’t pay a good employee too much but you can’t pay a bad employee too little. Just back from being accused of oppressing my neighbor as the privileged soul that I am.
My dad has been dead for 20 years but not a day goes by that I don’t think of stories and lessons taught. Changing jobs over not getting a ten cent raise comes to mind, but always working hard to contribute more than the next guy.
A restaurant chain, Plaza Azteca, with multiple locations in my area has just been hit for over $11 million in fines for failing to pay minimum wages, not paying overtime, and even forging paperwork to fake it…