> I guess I will take the bull by the horns on this one, please don't take
>anything personally. The company I worked for could care less about the
benders
>conditions. As far as the work quality, "Just get it done quick." If
>everything was great and the customer was happy you heard nothing, if not...
>
hmm- This is not so where I work, but I cannot speak for other shops. I am
aware of some in the area where this is true, but as a whole I would like to
think otherwise.
> Finally, on to the large production shops. Whether union or not, these
>benders come in do their 40 or their footage then leave. After seeing the
>union scale in my area at $27/hr, I don't think I could blame them.
>
Do you have a union scale for tubenders? I was unawre that there was such a
thing.
> Now I am not being specific here, Please, look at these as
>generalizations. At my former company what I could do , and who or what I knew
>didn't matter to the boss or the broker," just get the job done yesterday". In
>the small shops, they are looking to cash in. The only way you can cash in is
>to keep overhead and production costs down, therefore... Large production
>shops, Assembly line workers? What benefit is a Neon Association to these
>people? To the actual employee yes, but to the "average" employer? Who
will be
>receiving your flyer, the employer or the bender? Does this sound familiar to
>anyone?
I see your point here. The association should help benifit the employer or
the owner as well as his emploees. I don't think that an association would
fail to help out the owner and his shop....this is the whole idea. There
will be several disgruntled responses, the Independant tubebending shop,
that belives uniteing will only bring on outside regulations and more rules
to go by, but this should be only a few.
> IMHO a Neon Association would benefit the people who care about 'doing it
>right', and separating themselves from those who don't. I don't think it will
>ever reach everyone, but those who care and want to get ahead will probably
seek
>it.( We are all on Neon-L aren't we? ) Look at the number of sign shops and how
>many belong to organizations or UL. My former company was UL only, and only
>because they had to be for a particular account. I would like to think that
>these occurances are few and far between. But through many conversations and a
>few experiences I have found otherwise. Anyone else experience the same?
>
My belief was that an association is to help thread out those shops who run
you out of busisness because they are apathetic towards the quality of
they're work...I thought that this was one of the key points...To give those
who care something to represent the quality of they're work, and to say
"hey, I am not just another tubending shop. THis guy can undersell my price
because of the quality of work he is doing. Useing an association, and the
"proposed" bending rateing system, ect, you will have on paper the difrences
between your co. and his. Hopefuly this would help wisen up the apatheitc to
realize that there are benifits to be derived. I
I am also going to play devil's advocate here and contradict my
former paragraph for a minute...I donot think it is a good idea to try and
make ot union style, where if you are not part of the assoc. you canot do
work...basicallly because the assoc. members will run your name out of town,
but I do think it is important to have a quality reprsentation within the
neon assoc. I do belive that if the assoc. were to exist, few people would
refuse to join. Mabe be apathetic twards it at first...but only the assoc.
could determine what happens at that point.
> On a final note, stop and think for a moment of every bad installation,
>piece of glass, or half assed shop you've been in or worked for ( or had to do
>repairs for ) and I think you will understand my point. The average
>person/owner doesn't care now/nor will they about an Association,' Until'
those
>that do care out weigh them. I think the important factor is to offer what ever
>support or information a Neon Association could realistically do. Then let the
>interested parties ( both members and manufacturers, as both would benefit ) do
>the rest. With any luck, it would snowball.
"Until"... Perhaps this will take time, perhaps not. We still donot
know how many will show a sincere intrest towards an assoc. Until then, it
is all speculation....
Matt