In a word-no! Not on my contract anyway. We do get paid commission on chargeable work, but as a region. We only get paid that if the region as a whole exceeds it's pre-allocated budget for the year. So bad debts do have some impact on salary anyway. Also the rate my company charges is of course considerably more than they pay me, fine, that's how it works. They put in the investment and take the risks and make a profit out of my efforts. If they don't then I'm probably out of a job anyway. I think that aided by technology, more and more work is being put on the service engineer these days. As well as repairing trucks it's increasingly down to us to be salesmen, deal with invoice queries, price up jobs, etc, etc. Things that only a few years ago would have been done by other people. I think the industry as a whole needs to value, support and reward us, rather than constantly looking at ways to cut our pay and conditions. (Which I think is Daryl's original point) I'm happy to say my company is pretty good on that score, and maybe that is why we are riding out this downturn better than many.

What woudl happen if the customer defaulted on paying the service invoice and they (customers)have been known to do that especially in "tough" times? Should the service tech's next pay check be docked the labor hours for that job(s).
On the sales side the sales reps commission certainly would get back charged (if he was paid a commission on invoice) - it has happened to me more than once.

Except when it gets to the point where the company is billing the customer for travel, but they are not paying you. Also I can see that if this has been imposed on you it amounts to a pay cut. There aren't many perks left being a service engineer, in the UK anyway. The van used to be a perk but now the tax system means it costs £600 a year to have the van for private use. Not worth it for most people who have another vehicle (or access to one) as you still have to pay for fuel. Personally I'm sick of the sight of it at the end of the week!

guys. you can think of it this way. if you start at 7am you can leave your house at 6 then drive your own car with your own gas to the shop and pick up you service truck, then start making your service calls. it is a perk to drive a company paid truck with them paying for the gas

is it page 2 yet?
LTTechie says that since he doesn't charge for travel to scheduled service his employees do not get paid for that time.
I would like to STRONGLY suggest that he reconsider this. I think that soon enough someone will complain to the wage and hour division of the US department of labor, (and it has been my experience that this is one areas that the Govco has not cut back on, and seems to have plenty of ability to get companies to "do the right thing" really quick) and his expense in just going back and figuring out how much he owes the State and Federal government in back taxes and penalty and his employees in wages and interest will be enough to make him regretful of the little bit of extra cash he had pocketed.
Failing to pay taxes on wages he -should_ but did not pay can be a headache no one really wants. the Govco really looks down on folks that avoid paying their taxes by avoiding paying their employees.
As far as I can tell (and I ain't no lawyer) the rules in the US and under "common law" for hourly paid workers have NOTHING to do with who is being paid, but it does cover at whose -convenience- the time is dedicated towards. If the tech is doing what he wants, he should not get paid. but if he is doing what his employer tells him he must be doing (driving to a scheduled maintenance), then he has the right to be paid for his time.
I think you might find the "required" to drive the company vehicle is also where there is a difference between salesman's and Joe_d's scenarios. If the company -requires- it, they should pay for it. If it is given as a "perk" and there is the option (not _required_) to leave the truck at the shop and drive their own vehicle home, then it is at the employee's convenience, and not the company's, and then there is no requirement to pay.
As far as I can tell, the "whose convenience" test will work in all hourly wage scenarios as far as deciding who should pay for the time.
If you are doing a set price PM but have to wait for 30 minutes for the truck, do you make who ever made you wait to pay, or do you think you can take that out of the techs pocket, and not pay him for the time he had to wait, as your price for the PM is based on a set time limit allowed the tech to complete the work?

Glorious ! Just Glorious ! Let's start page 2.

Seems a fairly standard thing in the UK now that you lose half an hour travel per day. I think it would be difficult for a company to take more than this. My nearest customer is 15 minutes drive, so if I spend all day there it's all square, I couldn't find a workshop based job with any shorter commute. If the company didn't pay travel at all I would simply quit as my average weekly travel to and from work is about 13 hours. I also have 2 customers that involve a 5 hour round trip. I wouldn't be doing that for nothing. So to sum up, losing the first half hour is fine by me, I took the job on that basis, but any more would not be acceptable.

As a small lift truck repair shop I offer travel at no charge for my customers when performing scheduled maintenance. My deal with my techs is if I am getting paid for travel then they are getting paid.

What part don't you understand? Would be a good place to start.

m not able understand this thread????
can u plz explain???????

Like I said, call the Texas Wage Commission, the law also tells us that people who steal horses and cattle are to be hung. Well that does not work any longer. Every case has its own merrit.

Salesman, I looked it up and according to State of Texas regulation 29 C.F.R. 785.35 that the employer does not have to pay wages for commute time home even if in a company owned vehicle unless (29 C.F.R. 785.36) travel is outside of normal hours or is a substantial distance. Bummer.

Hey Salesman, could you point me in the direction of where I would find that information as to Texas law concerning travel time? I don't work for that company any more but still have close friends who are still there.

Well here in the great state of Texas, this would be illegal for any company to do. If you are required to take a company truck home you must be paid the time it takes you to drive home, the time it takes you to drive to your next service call in the morning. As a former GM I can tell you that this is just greed on the company trying to pull this off. For insurance reasons your company has to state that you are on company time while driving the work truck to and back home around town etc. I have had to expalin this countless times with people I have dismissed.

Oh by the way most if not all materail handling service companies charge portal to portal. This is just a poor excuse for companies to try and increase its bottom line by taking money out of your pocket.

Do not get hot tempered if this is happening to you, just let it go in one ear and out the other. Do your job, and call the Texas Wage Inforcement Devision in Austin. Once you file complaint, they will investagate it. It may take up to (60) days but they will do there jobs, go threw time records GPS log etc. The issue the company a fine and demand that there be back pay giving for the employees who were done wrong.

Trust me, been there done that, tried to tell the owners we could not do it, and bam, we were fined, had had to issue back pay with intreast.

They are counting on you guys to be stupid about and quite or be fired for having a hot head.

My problem was as a GM I could never screw people over, not even the ones who for with me.

I think all the threads here are archived for ever, I see some from 2006 still getting posts this week...
This week I am far more interested in how folks are managing to keep customers from causing techs over heating and having heat stress related problems. I have had 2 customers insist on the tech working in an area with no air circulation and ambient temps above 105F, and because they "needed" the truck they told the tech if he stopped working before their truck was fixed they would never use our service again. Same 2 customers would not consider a rental as too much $.
1 tech quit working for us because of it, he just locked up his van outside the gate and left his keys and phone inside.

The suspence of how long this thread will get is absolutely killing me! I sure hope it lasts ! It feels delightful.

At my previous employer, when I hired on it was stated that I will be required to be on call 24 hours/day, 7 days/week every couple of months. Also if there are still calls on the board at the end of my day I may be required to work overtime. Given these requirements my employer stated that my drive time to and from my house to job sites would be paid by the company minus one half an hour. Sounded fine to me. BUT, right before I quit we had a big meeting where we were told there would be no more paid travel and our GPS systems would be more closely monitored. In Houston (The City Of Perpetual Construction), no matter what time of day, the same 45 mile trip could take half an hour to an hour and a half. After arguing with every manager that this is a breach of my employment agreement, I was basically told to sit down and shut up. One of the other senior techs did the math and by not having to pay us travel time the owner got to keep about $1.6 mil in his pocket over the course of the year.

i,m sorry but if i don,t get paid from my front door and back to my front door i won,t be leaving my front door. all the little bits and pieces you do for companys mean you deserve to get paid for every minute you are out grafting for them.ie parts and parcels littering your front hall , answering calls when your on a day off ,......

Just recently I looked into this in great detail.In the USA this has been litigated many times.After reviewing several cases I have determined that this is one of the great mysteries of our time.This could well end up being the longest discussion thread the world has ever known.