Wages

A man owned a small farm in South Georgia. The Wage and Hour Department claimed he was not paying proper wages to his help and sent an agent to interview him.

"You just give me a list of your employees and tell me how much you pay them."

"All right," said the farmer. "I have a hired man. Been with me for three years. I pay him $600 a week, plus room and board. I have a cook. She's been here six months. She gets $500 a week plus room and board."

"Anybody else?" asked the agent as he scribbled on a note pad. "Yeah," the farmer said. "This guy is none too bright. Works about eighteen hours a day. I pay him ten dollars a week and give him chewing tobacco."

"Aha!" the agent roared. "I want to talk to that man!"

"Speaking," said the farmer.

More right than wrong. And that guy takes all the risk, too.

Several years ago I was farming and employed about 15 to 18 workers. I had one man that had been with me for 14 yrs and several other workers that worked for me for maybe ten yrs. The man that worked for me for 14 yrs was my main man and he ran the crew for me and was very good at it and I compensated him very well at the end of the season. He came to me one day and said that the men wanted to share in the farm's profits. They wanted their hourly wages plus 10% of the profits at the end of the season. I said great, I have no problem with that, all you need to do is put up your 10% of money to run the operation and if the farm loses money I will deduct 10% of the loss from the hourly wages. All of a sudden hourly wages looked good to them! This is the typical thinking of hourly farm worker, they want what is theirs and part of what they think is a profit and have nothing invested not even a lunch box. I provided their housing, electricity, heating and cooling and even paid for 1/2 the cooks wages and transportation back to their country if they stayed the entire season, but that wasn't enough!! This is one reason I quit farming and I really missed it.

Orchard?

Vegetable Grower

Ahh, my next guess! Here in western Maryland we still have a fair amount of orchards around. Sounded like your situation.

My brother and I have a roofing company. We're overwhelmed with work and are trying to hire more help. The Mexicans seem to be gone, and the Americans all want health insurance. The company doesn't even pay for MY insurance I sure am not buying theirs. Doesn't much matter though. When we do pick one and call him back, either he doesn't answer, or if he does he never shows up for day 1.

Might have to scale back to fit what workers we have and be content. But it's so frustrating. Sorry, had to vent.

JLG time to raise your prices and take some profits.

Two people I'd never work for 1)another farmer and 2)a person that has less money then I do.

Hate to raise them more. We're in line with
the going rate and are fairly profitable.
We've fine tuned everything now I believe,
just insert a few more workers and knock
another job or 2 out a week. I'd almost be
ok scaling back, but one of the key guys is
Dad, whose 60 this year. So how much longer
is he going to want to roof. He has his own
businesses and just helps us cause he likes
to.

Another key guy is 49. So we're going to
have to tackle this help thing sooner or
later.

Actually, a guy from our church contacted us
yesterday looking for work. So far, he's
done everything he said he would as far as
phone calls and sending in an application. I
think he might just work out.

(quoted from post at 18:33:43 05/07/17) Hate to raise them more. We're in line with
the going rate and are fairly profitable.
We've fine tuned everything now I believe,
just insert a few more workers and knock
another job or 2 out a week. I'd almost be
ok scaling back, but one of the key guys is
Dad, whose 60 this year. So how much longer
is he going to want to roof. He has his own
businesses and just helps us cause he likes
to.

Another key guy is 49. So we're going to
have to tackle this help thing sooner or
later.

Actually, a guy from our church contacted us
yesterday looking for work. So far, he's
done everything he said he would as far as
phone calls and sending in an application. I
think he might just work out.

Click to expand...

Just out of curiosity, is the mr. roof company in your area. I recently got some quotes on a house we own, and mr roof was cheaper by quite a bit. I assumed they would be higher, given that they advertise a lot, and have a higher overhead cost. But they were about 10% cheaper than the 2 other quotes I got. They seem to have really good reviews?