Richard P, 80 volt units are used generally on 2-ton machines and above and generally took over from 72 volt many years ago. 48v are still very present in the global market and will be for a very long time to come. 24V is also used on light duty counterbalance units.

Hydrogen fuel cells are still not a reality in the marketplace, but more and more hybrid trucks are and will enter the market over the coming years. What you should note is that outside of North America diesel trucks are as or more popular than LPG, and you will find very few machines that can run on gasoline.

Emissions regulations for Europe are the reverse of the US, with LPG emissions not regulated where as Diesel emissions are....

The issues highlighted in this thread are not new and have been leading to this point for a long time and it is unfortunate that many a good engineer has had to go elsewhere over the years. (Do I hear bring back the Leverton/Finning days?)

A union in the UK differs massively to that stateside and only comes in to play for specific issues i.e. pay disputes, dismissal, and is their to protect a large number of employees. In the US union workers have a bad rep, which is not the same with the UK due to the way in which the unions operate.

What you should also note is that Briggs in the UK has more service technicians than Briggs in the US does over the 5 or so states it covers, however all the UK technicians fall under one labour law....so this is where a union is a good thing.

Times are hard, but too many companies are reactive rather than proactive in these times. This is the time to take a loss in order to make sure your business is ready for when the market bounces back, by buying market share and spending time on staff training.

Neither sales or service is a standalone business, but you can only do so many new customers, so after that your service staff (controllers, engineers (field and workshop) and parts guys) are what make the biggest impact on the biggest impact on the next sale.....and this is where emphasis needs to be put back to.

Wow, fellas, you guys are really upset. Over here in the states most of us techs and engineers don't even have unions. We are really lucky to be employed. It is nasty out there. I have always wondered about the union and its benefits and pitfalls. I only know of one forklift dealer that had technicians that belonged to the union.

Help me get educated on this. What exactly is the benefit of the union? What would I expect? I mean parts/service, rental, and everything is way down so, I don't really know where the money would come from.

Hello to the United Kingdom. My name is Richard and I live here in the States. How is everything over there? What I mean, is what is the forklift situation there? Are your businesses switching over to 80 volt quickly or has it been in place for a long period of time.

We are still stuck on 36/48 volt over here but I think the trend is going to begin. How about Hydrogen fuel cells? Are you seeing any movement? I just read an article that said we are moving here in the U.S. but I haven't seen any yet.

I thought I read or heard that it was still too expensive. I hope to here from you folks. Have a good day.

Well done lads on the rise, going with tradition on these victories it will be short lived , the company will manipulate it their way eventually , divide and conquer will be their new motto , been there saw it in the pits, good luck...

The arguments surrounding the salary differences between engineers and sales people have been running for as long as anyone can remember.
All sales people used to have to be engineers of some sort if they were to have credibility in front of the customer. Sadly however those days have since passed but, rather than complaining about the salary differences, become a salesman yourself? Many have done it before and been hugely successful.
Yes the salary will be better and the vehicle will be more luxurious (with an expensive personal tax bill too) but sales is black and white; numbers will immediately show if that person is working and/or successful. Consequently job security is not what you would enjoy as an engineer.
Unfortunately, the choice is money or job security - there are very few jobs in this industry that can provide both

Well done gents for getting a rise

Jan/feb/mark not to be paid though, so not 2.5% but its a start,
what i find insulting is that briggs equipment pay there sales staff double and treble what im being paid as an engineer yet
the company still expect me to give them 2.5 hours a week for free, and then im expected to find leads for the already overpaid sales staff and i might get a tenner if im lucky, engineers have always got a raw deal but its getting worse,
our wages are seen as a cost saving exercise to the directors
of our company in there minds we are a drain on there budgets,
my advice to all who wish to remain as engineers working for
briggs equipment is join UNITE THE UNION NOW.

Sounds to me that the message has been lost somewhere, probably between the union and management talks. Yes bonus payment is a crude way of rewarding people, but not everyone reacts to being 'told' to perform. Better a carrot than a stick sort of thing.
The other point is that increased engineer performance does NOT equal increased charges to customers. PMs up to date, completing jobs in 2hrs rather than 3hrs, diagnosing problems 1st time rather than on the 3rd or 4th visit all help toward improving profitability, the charge to the customer remains the same on a fixed rental agreement. Any bonuses paid would be self funding. Infact working more efficiently would allow charges to customers to be lower, thereby making the offering more competitive and increasing sales.
Without knowing, I would guess that central principles are not being communicated well and emotion has taken over on both sides.

briggs equipment is like any other typical american company no
yearly wage increase is standard practice for them, so anyone
who excepts less per hour for an increased basic will in two
years time be worse off, ( DONT DO IT) can you trust there
promises (NO) remember the hr director wanted 45hours a week and no private van use, 20 days paid holiday will be next
and im sure they have loads more on there agenda before the years out , remember briggs directors are only interested in there own destiny always taking the lions share, throwing the
scraps to the engineers.

I thought the Briggs mission was to be the number one service provider in the industry. How can they achieve this by **** the engineering group and if, as you say, pay the engineers a bonus to screw their customers on accidental damage charges?

Sounds as if Briggs want their customers to pay for their settlement with the engineers.

As a principle you may be right, but surely everyone has the right to be treated equally as a start point, if i as an engineer did not perform as well as other members of my team i would expect to be told, if it continued i would expect to be disciplined, where does money come in to this equation, it shouldn't, what we have been offered is the same for us all a reduction in our salary for the amount of hours we are out of the house. If the company wants to put a reward scheme in that pays extra wages then in the opinions of a few people on this site the harder workers would earn the most, but then the customer base would impact this as we all know some customers are happier to part with their money than others, does that mean the engineer who gets the more reluctant i dont want to spend much customer is a poorer worker, that will open a bigger can of worms than our pay talks.

Engineers are the life blood of any service based business, and Briggs is not exempt from this, so they need to be treated with the respect they are due. That said, Briggs are running a commercial business and it's a competitive market out there. Any business needs to ensure they are maximising commercial value from every employee. My understanding is that any proposed T&Cs changes are based on rewarding those that perform well and not rewarding as well those that don't. As a principle, that's not unfair is it??

thats the same with all truck companies tho. Us engineers whether field or workshop, get treated like *** no matter we are the company's bread winners. When the governers realise that then they may get staff loyalty. if briggs do strike i don't think their new customer wyevale garden centers will be best pleased as they now have that contract from stac a truc.

Its about time the engineers who ern the money got a good pay deal as this is a industry wide rip off at the moment. The managers want to remember who it is that erns the cash to pay there wages.

Go for it lads!!