Labor rate per square foot

Status
Not open for further replies.
A

Anthony Loren

Member
Location
Granbury, Tx. USA
The company I work for informed us that they will no longer pay us hourly, they will begin paying us per square foot, labor only. The terms are .40 cents for rough in and .40 cents for trim outs, all residential. I would like to know if this is a fair price, we are located in the D/FW metro area.
 
For a 3000 sq.ft house they will pay you $2400.00. I am assuming this is per man so if there are 2 men on the job that is $4,800 for labor.

There are many questions. One is are these custom homes or cookie cutter homes where when you do one the next is virtually the same?

How fast can you normally do one of these home?

How much were you paid per hour? I don't need top know but you can use this info to come close. If you work slowly then you may take a beating. Of course it will also depend on how slow the person you are with may be.
 
I have doubts they will pay that rate per man, if they want to pay per square foot - they are looking at a known base - and if it takes multiple people to do the task they divide it evenly - or accordingly if they all didn't have same time in the job.

This can be good or bad. I have seen drywallers that are paid by the square foot, they work hard and fast so they can do more jobs - at the expense of making mistakes. Some have started to penalize them for mistakes to help keep them in check and keep quality up some.
 
They aren't customs houses, there are basically six floor plans, they move a wall around occasionally but the wiring stays the same for the most part. There are three of us, we can rough in 3300-3500 sq. ft. in two days.
 
Anthony Loren said:
They aren't customs houses, there are basically six floor plans, they move a wall around occasionally but the wiring stays the same for the most part. There are three of us, we can rough in 3300-3500 sq. ft. in two days.
Click to expand...


So that is .40 cents for rough in. 3500 X .40 = $1440

If you have to divide that by 3 then each of you gets 1440/3 = $480 for 2 days work. That is equivalent to $30.00 per hour. That is not so bad
 
This can be good or bad. What happens when ones not ready to jump into after your finished with the one before? Stock delays? Framing delays? Drywall guy cuts a wire?
 
What about the distance that one box might take?>

What about, since everything is on a slab in Texas one uses a lot of PVC ?

The bottom line is going to your boss, not the workers, how American!
 
If that .40 is to be divided it could cause problems.

I worked in a factory that paid "piece work" or "production" to the operators. Each one worked on their own and received pay for what they did. The mgmt decided that they would change things up. So they put 6-10 operators on teams and paid a "production" rate to the team which they divided equally.

The problem with this was, if an operator was averaging $20 an hour before and another was only averaging $10 an hour before, the team now made $15 each. So the $20 person now only made $15 and the $10 person thought they got a raise!

Imagine the work ethic after that!:happyno:
 
Anthony Loren said:
The company I work for informed us that they will no longer pay us hourly, they will begin paying us per square foot, labor only. The terms are .40 cents for rough in and .40 cents for trim outs, all residential. I would like to know if this is a fair price, we are located in the D/FW metro area.
Click to expand...

It doesn't matter if it's fair or not. He has to compete with EC's using sub-crews that rough/trim on sq/ft or flat rate, and don't pay SS tax and pay cash under the table.
 
cdslotz said:
It doesn't matter if it's fair or not. He has to compete with EC's using sub-crews that rough/trim on sq/ft or flat rate, and don't pay SS tax and pay cash under the table.
Click to expand...


Same thing happened in the Houston market in the early 2000's, it is just matter of time before it is state wide. We are one of the top 3 residential shops in Texas and had to switched over in the Houston area to sqft in 2005 to stop the lost of home builders and market share to all the shops that had already moved to this pay plan (read as scheme). They make it sound like it is a great opportunity for the workers to increase their weekly bring home pay. You have to ask yourself if they trying to help you by increasing your pay, why not increase your hourly rate? The reason is once they get you on a sqft basis you will become a *1099* contract worker that they do not have to pay federal and social security taxes on. They can drop workmans comp insurance. You will lose any benefits such as vacation time, health insurance, holiday pay.
 
cadpoint said:
What about the distance that one box might take?>

What about, since everything is on a slab in Texas one uses a lot of PVC ?

The bottom line is going to your boss, not the workers, how American!
Click to expand...

As said it has good and bad. The boss knows what labor is going to cost whether it is done in a day or five days, and only has a problem if it is taking too long or if work is not done correctly - but that can be a problem with other labor arrangements as well.

It can motivate workers because the more projects they get done the more they make, but they still need to limit the pace enough that they are not making too many mistakes. They also need to limit the pace enough they don't burn out.

Having correct supplies on site when needed is a must or there will be a lot of conflict as these workers will be complaining they are at work but are not really being paid properly if they can't do what they are being paid to do.

Truck drivers that are paid by the mile are similar in some ways - my father used to do that and ended up really upset with one larger company he once worked for. They generally are only paid for "loaded miles" so when you unload the trip to the next pick up is not paid - companies generally try to get you to a close by next pick up - but when working for a larger trucking company that may mean longer wait times because someone else is closer to some of those potential next pick ups. This gets frustrating because you are miles from home not driving so you are not being paid, but there isn't a whole lot to do either but sit in the truck. Kind of same thing happens if the installers show up to site and there is no material to install.
 
I have worked in factories that paid by piece work and car dealers that paid by the job, not the hour.

Without exception, the workers that knew the most and did the best work got paid the least amount of money.

As a QC inspector at a piece work factory, I got to see this first hand.
 
I've seen this create a hornets nest when it comes to workmen's comp. You're effectively becoming a subcontractor. When the insurance audit comes everyone gets shell shocked.
 
I did electrical piece work it was .45¢ sf. For a month. Than it dropped to .20¢ sf. It was not per employee it was decided by 3 men at a % based on skill the lead man -50% the two apprentice 25% and because your the sub, you don't get paid to go back and l
Fix problems even if the problem was a Drywall screw. Burryed box etc... It caused 100+ workers to meet after work and discuss a strike. We all met in the am at work loaded the 30 vans like nothing than called the boss out to increase wage, he refused and we all walked away. He lost 8 subdivisions and closed up shop 1 month later. We all work for difrent contractors now at an hourly rate.... Back than there was no law requiring insurance. So we worked without. But now you will be required to provide yourself with insurance.

C/D is right find a new job...

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk
 
Rayl82 said:
I did electrical piece work it was .45¢ sf. For a month. Than it dropped to .20¢ sf. It was not per employee it was decided by 3 men at a % based on skill the lead man -50% the two apprentice 25% and because your the sub, you don't get paid to go back and l
Fix problems even if the problem was a Drywall screw. Burryed box etc... It caused 100+ workers to meet after work and discuss a strike. We all met in the am at work loaded the 30 vans like nothing than called the boss out to increase wage, he refused and we all walked away. He lost 8 subdivisions and closed up shop 1 month later. We all work for difrent contractors now at an hourly rate.... Back than there was no law requiring insurance. So we worked without. But now you will be required to provide yourself with insurance.

C/D is right find a new job...

Sent from my HTC One M9 using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Great job standing up.

In Calif. you will not only need Work comp but a contractors license. I can't imagine other states not requiring the same.
 
You can get around the legal issues by paying everyone minimum wage, carrying workers comp for them etc and make the piece rate above and beyond that.

I still would say no way.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top