A former colleague just landed a very similar position he had here and his pay went up by 15k - and that's his starting pay! I honestly never considered that I was not paid enough here, but now I'm starting to wonder.
Do other people know how do we stack up when it comes to pay?
In the good ole' days under the bell system breakup I worked for PNB. PNB, Northwestern Bell and Mountain Bell were formed as US West. Mountain was paid the least and Northwestern was paid more than PNB. It took 3 years to make all three company's wages equal.
When I was a CDT, I had contact with several CenturTel PBX techs. We compared wages and I made $5.00/hr more than they did for an equivalent pay grade. Before CTL they were called Union Tel; CTL came along and bought UNION and told the employees that would only pay a certain amount and they could stay or quit.
When we were Qwest, the company decided to move OSP engineering to Denver. Most of Engineers retired and a few locals went to Denver. Not getting the numbers they wanted, G5 clerks were offered upgrades to management with a 10% pay upgrade if they went. Being a Splicer then and a P-1 (top pay grade then) I still made $5/hr more than they did. I found it amusing at the time, until we started getting prints that were so screwed up and just plain wrong from Denver.
So, in other words, there is pay disparity along pay grades and wage zones and probably always will be. Until everyone is a contractor.....
Thanks for making my point 75%
And the Russell in reference is not a co tech
Most Saturdays I am running around in a Truck for 5 hours to give a short to a Tech or send tone because they are not allowed or don't know how to give one themselves and do my 2 minutes of making the cut for them since they are impatient and call a cut in blind anyway making my trip a waste of time and repeated since the pair they cut to was bad also.
They are 5 to ten minutes away from the C.O. Where I can spend a hour round trip just driving, They are allowed to work on the protector frame but are told not to do so and cut to clear and told to do it blind if nobody is there now I have hear.
Their Supervisor is worried about the charts and graphs and turn around times not the customer.
It’s not a old guy/young guy issue it’s 75% across the board seen both good 30 year and 10 year also seen both bad several , both who can only find pair with toner other who know cable code well
Only difference between bad 30 year guy and good 10 year guy is 30 year guy will still have a job after lay-off because of union seniority
As for watching movies in CO skippy Russell what do you do every Saturday sure not maintenance
I am one of the old guys and I always just chuckle when I see the young guys complain about us. At least we don't have to use a smartphone to Google color code when we want to fix a cable to find a pair because we don't know color code.
Nobody sitting in any of our CO's Watching movies skippy !! we are the old vanguard don't even have that c-ap in our COs underpaid? By a TON virtually EVERY other company pays more than we do.. you can thank yourselves as one put it. WE LET THEM pay us less and advance us less...we knew what time it was...yeah go and ruffle your feathers next contract...life has forever changed and you will see that soon. Our Plant says everything you don't even need to read any of this just look around you.
"Not paid enough
More than 75% of the techs do not know how to do their jobs, that same amount sit in CO and watch movies all day, so $31/hr is more than enough.
Also you all vote every contract to accept a 1% pay raise so you can only thank yourselves and your c-appy union"
You have to have some incentive to learn more skills and have the ability to take the classes, many ask but get we don't have the man power to let you go to class for a week or whatever or it is not offered anymore. The Old guys as you call them had the mentorship and ability to go to these classes. Newer techs are very lucky if they get the chance, the more they layoff the more knowledge leaves the building and less opportunity for people to learn stuff. Oh and many use Google on equipment now to get a overview on how the equipment deployed in their office works and configured. Many are not given or know about the inside reference material, many of their Supervisors don't either anymore. It's a slow downward spiral.
Call for Tech support and you get it is no longer supported, why? Because they laid the Equipment expert off or the Tech doesn't know who to contact and gives you a run around.
We didn't make this plan, we didn't stack the Executive Management with people that spend their time making videos now about how you should be happy, happy, happy in their new culture.
$31hr CO Tech? Dude you are getting screwed. Non-union CO Tech here $33.80hr.
Anyone at CTL in a technical postion and below a director level is probably underpaid. But since telecom is dying we are all screwed, i.e. US based employees . That's why the CEO wants CTL to re-brand itself as a Technology company.
Not paid enough
More than 75% of the techs do not know how to do their jobs, that same amount sit in CO and watch movies all day, so $31/hr is more than enough.
Also you all vote every contract to accept a 1% pay raise so you can only thank yourselves and your c-appy union
CTL IS the lowest when it comes to technicians at least in the Qwest bargaining unit compared to Verizon, AT&T and Frontier. Salaries are probably on the low end if you are looking at those same companies.