I understand going faster or maybe not being super neat if your not making fair money, BUT I'm 76 years old and my father(who was born in 1901) always said if you don't have the self respect to do the job properly,, maybe you should just go home. Yes I understand having to support a family, but do you really benefit from earning the nickname "Short Cut"??

What would you do if the quickest a job can be done is 9 hrs, but pays 3.5?

Turn back this state sucks

Bad idea

IT ALREADY IS!Notice the words "AGREE","AGREED" and "AGREEMENT"."Generally, if there is no other contract in place, the law doesn’t prevent an employer from lowering an employee’s wage prospectively. However, if the work has already been performed at a higher AGREED rate, the employer must pay the employee the AGREED wage for the hours already worked. For example, if an employee and employer AGREE that the worker will earn an AGREED flat rate of $500 for a job and the employee performs the work under this AGREEMENT, the employer cannot later reduce their flat rate wage to $400 after the work has already been completed

It does not matter what any book says ONLY WHAT YOU AGREE TO!"Sign my bid or I ain't touching that shitheap!"

I can see the manufacturers just eliminating the customer pay labor time and making the warranty time the only time in the guide thus screwing the techs worse.

@John Brennan you are correct but with an industry standard set for such a long time most places will have to lose on many jobs before they will break from the industry standards. There are few programs that allow you to send in times, and will adjust if they get enough people reporting the same issues. That is a key component of 90% of the invoicing systems out there having the labor guides provided. Also with the current customer base they have access to those data bases now, and will want to know why you are “overcharging”them.

@John Brennan first off it is not illegal to use those books they were available to anyone that was willing to pay for them, to be illegal there has to be a law, so please speak with some professionalism when trying to defend your point. I am a small shop, and I pay for those catalogs, and anyone could buy them, back in the day you had to have a source for them, but if you had a parts house willing to sell them, then you could buy them, now there may have been a warning for professional use only, but that is not illegal. If you purchased them from a reputable store then they were legally yours. Now they have the electronic subscriptions that a person that can subscribe to and see them, there are services that will price a job out with it clearly stated on the estimate the labor guide lines, along with the average labor rate for your area. As long as they pay for the use of the data it is not illegal. As far as preparing a bid, I have never heard of that, you do the job for the stated hours in the guideline, on cars past 4-5 years we make adjustment due to rust, and other wear and tear on a vehicle, usually that is up to the service manager making those calls after talking to the tech. As far as having to stop a job to go do a warranty that sounds like a personal issue at your dealership. My entire point was that if this went nationwide the manufacturers would simple cut the normal time out, and leave labor time, so they are not paying out more, and hurting the techs labor times overall, and the dealerships bottom line. If that came about then the labor guides would be no longer the standard. Every shop I know uses ether Mitchell or AllData for shop estimates, and that is what every job is based off. It is the service writer that needs to be trained to tell the customer hey this car is 5 years old rust and wear may cause some increase in the price. As for the warranty, I don’t deal with those, so no dog in that fight. I was making an o reservation, after having worked for a large corporation, they never lose money they find a way to get around issues.

@John Brennan yet every shop in our area has a different labor rate, they range from 72-135 an hour, yet the labor times used for the base estimates are 99% of the time are the same. A shop can choose not to use them , like I said 90% of the invoice systems use the labor guides to set the standard. There are a few out there that will allow shops to give inputs if a job is difficult. I think you need to stick to working on cars and stay out of being an internet lawyer, as throwing terminology you do not understand out there is making you look foolish. We are given labor times form the manufacturers on what it takes to do a job, there is not price fixing by giving this to the industry, this is a guide to figure where you should start. Every shop based on a number of factors sets the labor rates, they will charge, now if they had a had in setting this then you could make a case for price fixing, however in a 15 mile radius in my are the rate for standard labor varies from 75-135 an hour. I don’t know why you wish to argue with me for just stating that it is a possibility that they could cut the normal labor rate out, and go to warranty only. My shop pays our guys hourly as I am not a fan of flame rate as it can cause team work issues in a shop, when asking for help from a fellow tech. I am sorry you have a dealership that is not appreciative of your skills, and tries to screw you over.

@John Brennan first stop being a internet lawyer, stick to your automotive career. As the document you are referencing, shows two companies that actually worked together to fix the wages of those employees, as long as the labor rate differ then there is not a price fixing situation, and in order to be a price fixing situation businesses would have to meet, and agree to set their prices at x and pay there employees x. You can see that in this industry most shops might have similar rate non are the exact same. Then they would have to agree to pay the employees the say and agree not to poach employees. None of that is happening. The only thing that is happening here is the industry uses the labor guides to give the shops a place to start when estimating a job. Pricing fixing happens when 2 or more companies agree to set there labor rate, so if all the shops in my area said the labor rate is 110 an hour, and we will all pay our guys 25 an hour, that would be price fixing. As far as I know short of seeing a fellow shop owner at a restaurant or the lake, and saying high, we never decided to do that, except we probably all use the same software or similar to bill out. So if you have an issue talk to AllData, Mitchell 1, or any of the other invoicing systems. As they have not been brought up on charges for price fixing the industry. Honestly I think you want to argue, as you act like labor guides are bad, then say flat rate is the way of better productivity. Yet flat rate in every shop I know of is based off of the labor guides. Hope you have a good career in the industry as the labor guides are not going anyplace anytime soon. I wish you luck on any legal case you bring against a shops to prove they are price fixing.

It will never happens, because manufacturers goal is to please shareholders. Corporate world is not about customers, it's about pleasing shareholders and they will cut corners to deliver bigger return on investment

IT IS FEDERAL LAW THAT IT IS ONLY WHAT A TECHNICIAN AGREES TO.IT'S SIMPLE!!!JUST GIVE THEM A BID FOR WHAT YOU ARE WILLING TO PERFORM THE REPAIRS FOR AND ALL THEY ARE LEGALLY ALLOWED TO DO IS EITHER ACCEPT OR DECLINE YOUR BIDS.

The HB3940 has some particulars but it is 100% your rights under federal laws to AGREE or DISAGREE with any labor times and they cannot retaliate in anyway.Simply hand them a bid for what you are willing to perform the repair/s for.If they agree to it then make them sign it and when you complete it that is exactly what they owe you.Those books mean nothing and they were meant as reference ONLY!

​@@joebrenner4428I agree with you

@@AntonioClaudioMichael Notice the words "AGREE","AGREED" and "AGREEMENT"."Generally, if there is no other contract in place, the law doesn’t prevent an employer from lowering an employee’s wage prospectively. However, if the work has already been performed at a higher AGREED rate, the employer must pay the employee the AGREED wage for the hours already worked. For example, if an employee and employer AGREE that the worker will earn an AGREED flat rate of $500 for a job and the employee performs the work under this AGREEMENT, the employer cannot later reduce their flat rate wage to $400 after the work has already been completed"

@@joebrenner4428 makes Sense

@@AntonioClaudioMichael Mary Barra making $90,000 a day and you are doing free recalls.

Someone mentioned a possible loophole already: manufacturers cutting back on labor times with regular non warranty work to screw the tech

Definitely understand that one. One other piece of advice on the tools: Start a personal business, weather it be side jobs or something of the sort… gotta find a way to write of those tools still.

@@RustbeltMechanic nice!, thanks for that idea! Yeah, I think it's a game between techs and the manufacturer. we just gotta learn how to play it but once the government steps in all the fun and games are over. Lol