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What would you pay your employees??

Terry Z

Cast Iron
Joined
Aug 10, 2012
Location
Gurnee ILL. USA
Hi, I work at a medium sized shop with CNC lathes and mills. I do the set-ups on all the machines and once they are blessed by QC we then let the operator take over. We have work cells so it is two machines per employee. My question is what is a good operator worth?? If they can do tool offsets,check parts to the print, work safely,keep the coolant and lube filled in the machine, keep the area clean and are always on time and will work O.T. anytime you ask and you only see them when there is a problem they cannot fix themselves and are willing to learn. We are smack dab between Chicago and Millwaukee if that matters any. What are you paying your people?
 
If they are just an operator and do not have to do setups. I would say anywhere between $13 and $17 based upon competence and abilities. Do they go above and beyond their duties or do they do just enough to keep things running?
 
Hi, I work at a medium sized shop with CNC lathes and mills. I do the set-ups on all the machines and once they are blessed by QC we then let the operator take over. We have work cells so it is two machines per employee. My question is what is a good operator worth?? If they can do tool offsets,check parts to the print, work safely,keep the coolant and lube filled in the machine, keep the area clean and are always on time and will work O.T. anytime you ask and you only see them when there is a problem they cannot fix themselves and are willing to learn. We are smack dab between Chicago and Millwaukee if that matters any. What are you paying your people?

Whats everyone getting payed now?
 
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Hi, I work at a medium sized shop with CNC lathes and mills. ......


And one would guess that you are not happy with what you are making?
Yet you do not volunteer this number?
Your listed skills firmly put someone in line for $9.00 an hour, I hope you are worth twice that.

If you run the place, and it does not sound like it, my advice would be much different.
Where do you stand and why are you asking?
Bob
 
If your not making $20 per hour you need to change jobs. When I was in college we were told by every professor, The best way to give yourself a raise is, quit or threaten to quit. If the boss thinks your worth keeping he will give you a raise other wise he can spend his time and money teaching someone else to operate that machine.

Where I live carpenters, painter, roofers, brick layers, cement workers, cheat rock hangers, all make $20 to $30 per hour depending how good they are.

I have a friend with a master degree in chemical engineering that makes $150,000. every year mowing yards. When the weather gets cold he takes a 5 month vacation in Florida. He has been doing that for 30 years.

If you don't pay your people what they are worth you will pay the price. It cost you money to run a continuous training program for people that wont stay.

I worked in a Factory once where the plant manager refused to give anyone a raise more than 5 cents every 6 months. People would work there how ever long it took to find a better job. The company was loosing a lot of money in scrap parts and operating a continuous training program. One day we had a meeting to talk about what to do when I suggested give the workers a $2 raise they though I was crazy. After struggling for several more years and almost going out of business the NEW plant manager increased the pay scale and the company was then able to hire a better group of workers that stayed. Production increased, scrap rate dropped, profit went sky high and the company is still in business 30 years later.

You get what you pay for.

Use your brain not your back.
 
yeah gary, I'll have to call BS on that one. Here's a guy trying to find out what realistic pay is for an operator. Now you confuse him by giving him baloney on how cheat rock hangers are making $20-30/hr big range beacuse they're good (In TN at that...No. 45 out of 50 in median incomes!).

In my area I havn't seen a drywall worker, cement worker, roofer, or brick layer that is NOT from south of the border in at least 20 years. And that is beacause no one is making $30/hr doing those jobs.

And the yard mower my be pulling that in if he has at least 40 workers.

And some places don't care about running a continuous training program. Having someone load and unload a machine does not take much I hate to say. We start people who can breathe at $12/hr and they are happy (These are people who have to be shown how to use a mop or screwdriver and possibly have difficulty reading/writing). If you can do offsets, change tooling, basic edits and such the max you will get is $17. People making $30/hr around here in the machining buisiness are few and far in between. You are either top in the field or working in something government subsidized (defense or some lab)
 
yeah gary, I'll have to call BS on that one. Here's a guy trying to find out what realistic pay is for an operator. Now you confuse him by giving him baloney on how cheat rock hangers are making $20-30/hr big range beacuse they're good (In TN at that...No. 45 out of 50 in median incomes!).

In my area I havn't seen a drywall worker, cement worker, roofer, or brick layer that is NOT from south of the border in at least 20 years. And that is beacause no one is making $30/hr doing those jobs.

And the yard mower my be pulling that in if he has at least 40 workers.

And some places don't care about running a continuous training program. Having someone load and unload a machine does not take much I hate to say. We start people who can breathe at $12/hr and they are happy (These are people who have to be shown how to use a mop or screwdriver and possibly have difficulty reading/writing). If you can do offsets, change tooling, basic edits and such the max you will get is $17. People making $30/hr around here in the machining buisiness are few and far in between. You are either top in the field or working in something government subsidized (defense or some lab)

It seems to me that you live in a tiny, tiny world
 
It is NOT my salary I am asking about that is not my issue. I want to know the going rate for good operators I want to keep the people I have and I want some information on pay to go to bat for the people under me.
 
Figure out how much they're paying to live, how much it costs to eat around you, how much it costs to run a car, etc, and add all those number up. Now add a margin for savings.

What other people are making is totally irrelevant. You need to know how much *your* employees need in their personal circumstances. There is no other way. Figure out what they need and pay them that much.
 
If a guy is running 2 CNC's, those machines ought to be making at least 60 bucks an hour. So an employee after setup etc has say 6 productive hours a day, on 2 machines. After vacation and holidays he is bringing in 170k a year to the shop.

IS it really important how much you pay him?

Another way to put it is 'enough that he is happy enough with his job that he hits the cycle stop BEFORE you lose a 20k spindle'

Another way to put it is that you should not be embarrassed when someone finds out what you pay people.

I would think low teens would not be enough in most places in the country to keep good people in the job if you are really making them work, while once you get over 20 bucks an hour you are getting to the point where you HAVE to lay them off if things slow down at all.
 
Figure out how much they're paying to live, how much it costs to eat around you, how much it costs to run a car, etc, and add all those number up. Now add a margin for savings.

What other people are making is totally irrelevant. You need to know how much *your* employees need in their personal circumstances. There is no other way. Figure out what they need and pay them that much.


I don't agree with this at all. What if its a cheap area or in Cali and they want 1/2 million dollar homes. This sounds like the current gov. system, or kinda owning your help?
 
It doesn't really matter what the rest of the country pay their employees. Wages and cost of living are a very local thing.

What matters is within 30 minutes of your door. That is where your labor pool lives, and that is where your competition has their businesses. What your local carpenters, mechanics, warehouse workers, and other physical trades are paid matter much more to your employees than what is paid to machinists in New York or California.
 
Figure out how much they're paying to live, how much it costs to eat around you, how much it costs to run a car, etc, and add all those number up. Now add a margin for savings.

What other people are making is totally irrelevant. You need to know how much *your* employees need in their personal circumstances. There is no other way. Figure out what they need and pay them that much.

Pay employees by personal need? So a guy with 4 kids should get paid more than a single guy doing the same job? The question you need to answer is how much the local competition pays hourly and pay a little better than that with the same or better benefit package. Don't know about your region but in large cities where I moved from in Southern California just a 30 mile commute (in bad traffic of course) would get up to an extra $5+ an hour. So unless people responding are pretty close to you their input isn't very valuable. For example in North Orange County, California a top notch operator who could maintain a set-up made about $18 an hour
travel 30 miles north into San Bernardino County that drops to $14 an hour.
 
Ok,
In non-union shops with 2 to 10 years experience, $10-$18 per hour around Flint and Saginaw.
$12-$23 per hour in Detroit 1 hour away.
Ask around of people who work in shops in your area.

Benefits, vacation, etc. can add or subtract 30% so one can't just look at hourly wage alone.

Now I'm making the guess that you are in the middle.
Wanting more for your people is great and I'm all for that.
Now, where does that money come from?
Can you get the owner to take a pay cut?
Will you take less pay to give your guys/gals more?

I just ran the numbers for this year.
A $20/hr person running 85% of the time costs me $38.13 per billiable hour.
Bob
 
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Greenies get $15hr and 3 dollars more over 2 years. Greenies never stay around more than 2 years. If they do they are often taught to do other things so beyond that its a different type of scale. That what we did in the bigger buildgs and now that we downsized it pretty much stayed the same.
 
I think that is one of the issues with the machine shop business in general, I feel it is one of the hardest trades to learn, it takes many years, to get to a decent pay level, and advancement is slow, when i started in the machine shop in the mid 70's and knew my way around shop equipment and could do simple set ups i was at min. wage , started on the burr bench 2 years later never missing a day or punching in late, moving from all different machines and everything in the shop i was + .30cents, a buddy of mine who had a hook in the sprinkler fitters union was double my pay after 1 year.. all he needed was 4 pipe wrenches and his lunch box my first mic, and indicator cost double his total cost output, 2 years later i packed it in
 
It seems like the pendulum of wages in the tool and die trade is starting to swing back. Five or ten years ago there was a glut of diemaker types in my area. Lots of shops went bankrupt and lots of tradesmen (and a few tradeswomen) were walking the streets and that drove wages down. Simple supply and demand. Most of the guys that I worked with retired out of the trade and went into something else. They didn't all quit working, they just quit working in the trade. Too much pressure for too little money.

A friend of mine runs a cnc shop and was hiring for a cnc lathe production job. Put a part in, hit green button. Take it out and flip it around and put in the other lathe. Seems like he said about 2 minute cycle time. Put an ad on Craigslist for the position starting at $13/hour with good medical and other benefits. He said that he had 250 responses to the ad in 3 days. This was last year. I am pretty sure that he pays his non production operators quite a bit better. He takes very good care of his help and they take very good care of him. One of the best businessmen that I know.

Big B


I think that is one of the issues with the machine shop business in general, I feel it is one of the hardest trades to learn, it takes many years, to get to a decent pay level, and advancement is slow, when i started in the machine shop in the mid 70's and knew my way around shop equipment and could do simple set ups i was at min. wage , started on the burr bench 2 years later never missing a day or punching in late, moving from all different machines and everything in the shop i was + .30cents, a buddy of mine who had a hook in the sprinkler fitters union was double my pay after 1 year.. all he needed was 4 pipe wrenches and his lunch box my first mic, and indicator cost double his total cost output, 2 years later i packed it in
 
Figure out how much they're paying to live, how much it costs to eat around you, how much it costs to run a car, etc, and add all those number up. Now add a margin for savings.

What other people are making is totally irrelevant. You need to know how much *your* employees need in their personal circumstances. There is no other way. Figure out what they need and pay them that much.

A completely bass-ackwards look at compensation.

If you want to live in the Hamptons, you are going to have to have skills that support the level of income to have a $5k mortgage and your employer is not required to step up and pay in accordance to your preferred lifestyle.
 








 
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