493 replies to this topic

[techrights]

Baja, i think you missed the point.

All i was saying is i hate it how companies like BSA exploit overseas workers who do not know how much better life can be in Australia with working conditions how they should be under the Fairwork Act, we get exploited because companies like BSA/Foxtel who use sub contractors or individuals who have to become companies so we as an individual we come under the Trade Practices act which is very hard to get the same working conditions we deserve and get under the Fairwork Act.

I Feel it is us existing Aussies. Need to stick up and protect everyone's income in this country from companies like BSA/Foxtel even if they only just arrived downunder!

I hate how people like you Baja discriminate and jump up and down saying poor me using discrimination as tool for an argument. I did not say anything bad about people coming from another country what was bad about who they are as a person.

NO ONE EVER, SHOULD HAVE HATRED TO ANOTHER PERSON IN ANY FORM OF WAY

Baja you need to learn that BSA will drop you off the cliff if Foxtel tells them to. They simply do not care about anyone who they have employed. They do not care about you or your family. how you will feed your family if they do get told to get rid of you. I would hate to ever see you struggling to provide for you and your children just because of BSA.

Edited by techrights, 01 May 2013 - 09:20 PM.

[techrights]

Yes and i think it is really obvious that Baja is employed by BSA and does some sort of work for them. Maybe even Foxtel. He would have to be in some sort of Management hard line Position who just wants all of us to say. YES, i will work for nothing. Yes, i have everything but you should struggle to feed your family because i am more educated and have earned myself a management job.

You, and all the other ones like you just care about PROFIT MARGINS/Profit Ratious/ Companies Bottom Lines and for what??? Bigger Bonus Pay Checks at the end of the financial year.

Shareholders do not hear always that they are recieving money taken out of 1000's of aussie families mouths. But they will hear about BSA/Foxtel this time.

[Garryman]

I keep hearing a whole lot of slandering going on in either direction.

Techright's is going against BSA's overall business policies for being basically 'unfair' which is COMPLETELY what they are in the grand scheme of things, saying people are basically babies for wanting to strike because their wages are bad is a very draconian argument. Many an Australian fought for our right to strike, our right to stand up against something we feel isn't fair . Coming from someone who just left ATS to pursue another way to make money (and finding it) I find the argument of 'this isn't rocket science' to be very loaded and actually against all BSA's requirements for work.

They are sure as hell ready to act like it is, in the beginning satellite TV was dodgy but as the satellites got better we moved on and things got more complicated. Now we have to line up and have the levels correct on so many damn transponders its stupid, I will give them T20 and T17 as its a good indication of both the poles being line correctly but any further is just getting stupid. THIS IS ONLY TV, the NBN broadband satellites are far more critical in alignment but even they don't go as far as foxtel in their line up procedures.

The shear amount of certificates and training that's required now makes it feel like bloody rocket science, not to mention the accreditation that goes along with all of this. Also am I the only one who finds the first aid certificate pointless? Most of us are sole traders working on our own and the first thing you are taught is you aren't to give yourself first aid, at least that's what I remember when I did first aid years ago.

BSA doesn't care about skilled workers, Foxtel doesn't care about skilled workers. If you are more skilled or do better work than another contractor you get paid the same rates, same money, have to pay the same fines. They want the work done and they don't want to hear complaints.

As Baja is about the ONLY one going against the contractors I have to say, personally slandering anyone who counters your argument is not going to get yourself any credibility. Putting words into peoples mouths or taking words out of context will see your arguments pointless and pity.

Here is the truth about your 'rocket science', I am one of the 4 who are in the slightest bit qualified to do this work in the next 200kms. One guy wont be doing this for long due to medical reasons, the other won't do Austar work again as the money he makes in aerials is almost twice as good (his words) and the last one actually DOES work for Foxtel currently but isn't switching to BSA, just working out the ATS contract. BSA will now have to either hire 'unskilled' workers which make their contractors look bad or send in other contractors to get the quota filled or be fined from foxtel.

Your argument is correct, if you don't like it then leave. Contractors are leaving in droves, this leaves unskilled workers who believe their pay rates are fine which in turn hurts the customer. ALL your aguments, EVERY ONE OF THEM hurts the customer. The skilled workers are demanding to be paid for their skills, BSA ignores it, so the skilled workers leave. This only ever hurts the customer, which is where your argument started (which mind you is a terrible way to treat someone. If that's your attitude I hope someone gets you fired one day.)

You best not be working for BSA and be found out, you are setting one terrible example for the company if you are, just putting it out there.

[The Baja]

Eddy Current, on 01 May 2013 - 07:23 PM, said:

big business seeking bargain basement wages by shopping overseas for labour.

Companies can do this within the LAW ………. Just like you or I can get on –line and purchase goods from overseas………

When I started out, I too was paid **** money to do labor intensive work. But I used the experience and Studied to specialize in Unique parts of the trade. I give technical Support on the weekends (even when I am fishing) ha! ha!.

I don’t have to do this, I don’t get paid to do this, I am NOT Forced to do this…….But it don’t matter, it’s not about the money, it’s about been able to solve the problem.

I look at customers as people, I extend the same amount of courtesy and respect to them as I would expect myself, and it don’t matter who I work for or how much I get paid.

It’s all good ‘Ed’….. Just because I don’t agree with some of your Views, it doesn’t mean that you are a bad human being ……….. Relax




Cheer's






Baja

Edited by The Baja, 01 May 2013 - 11:09 PM.

[Storm AV]

I believe it all comes down to experienced workers providing a quality service. Once all the long term contractors have gone issues like you had with your install will and have been occuring more and more.
Pay fair rates, offer reasonable contracts and reward experience and customer satisfaction will improve-subscribers will increase and everyone will profit-keep things as they are and new subscribers will continue to fall as they have over the last few years.

Many guys have invested plenty of time and money to do this work-to insult them is un-australian.

[techrights]

Well Done Garryman and Strm AV, we just want to be paid for our skills and get a return on our business investment. Very True that The more skilled the contractor the better the work is done. I know over the 6 years i have been doing work for, I can complete an difficult install 1000 times better then when i was first out for even first 2 years. You learn little skills along the way on each install you complete. Therefor when the cables are run better and you can say to the customer yes not a problem or you know straight away there will be a problem the customer is happy that they have someone who knows what they are doing. and just doesnt punch through the wall and cable cable tie up the drain pipe. especially when there is a cavity up the brick.

People pay Hundreds of thousands even millions for their houses and as a customer you do not want a job that looks like crap just for some extra tv, that in mind they are forking out big bucks each month when they have the full package.

When Foxtel realises they need highly skilled technicians the better the customer base for Foxtel will be.

I know of Austar Customers who have cancelled their subcription after the tech had done a bad job. Mind you these technicians did not even last 6-12months.

Better Technicians for Foxtel, Means stronger customer Base. Means more $$$ for everyone even with technicians getting payed just a little more. The fact is the middle man get good $$$ for just organising work. Foxtel should think about contracting us out direct. Pay us direct seeing we will be a companies anyway. but Foxtel likes the fact they have a middle man to blame for things what go wrong, they can say punish this tech without themselves getting their hands dirty. if we even picked up half the money BSA/Downer/ATS/Skybridge gets paid for organising work. we would all be happy to get our current rate plus half of what the middleman get.  Happy Techs and Happy Foxtel.

[Storm AV]

Techrights-The rates of pay have dropped considerably over the last 10yrs as has the workload and yes the quality of work has significantly dropped.

I often attend customers premises to do home theatre, antenna/data work or simple tv wall mounting and often end up cabling where foxtel have said they cant run cables-on inspection the job was simple and I will pre-wire for the fox-this comes down to the contractors inexperience and often not wanting to do the work due to the time it will take-yes time is money and the guys wont spend 3hrs running cables, 10m of conduit, multiswitches and other associated costs to in the end clear $100.

I agree with baja-installing a dish is very simple-cabling often requires some building knowledge and occasionally creativity but customer care which is what leaves the biggest memory has been forgotten or simply ignored!

[GaryCook]

Someone raised the subject of 457 visas, let me give my personal experience.  We tendered for and were awarded a new contract that required skills and experience that wasn't currently available locally.  So we brought in a trainer on a 457.  She trained 4 people who are now trainers themselves and that section now employs 34 locals. The fact is if there were no 457 visa then 34 locals wouldn't have a job.  Previously we tendered for another contract that also needed a qualified and experienced person who we brought in on another 457.  That person and his wife are now Australian citizens and they have 2 locally born children.  He runs a section that employs 8 locals, no 457 visa and they wouldn't have a job either.

Sure there are probably some rorts, but the vast majority of 457's are of great benefit to all concerned.


Cheers
Gary

[The Baja]

techrights, on 02 May 2013 - 04:49 AM, said:

Better Technicians for Foxtel, Means stronger customer Base. Means more $$$ for everyone even with technicians getting payed just a little more. The fact is the middle man get good $$$ for just organising work. Foxtel should think about contracting us out direct. Pay us direct seeing we will be a companies anyway. but Foxtel likes the fact they have a middle man to blame for things what go wrong, they can say punish this tech without themselves getting their hands dirty. if we even picked up half the money BSA/Downer/ATS/Skybridge gets paid for organising work. we would all be happy to get our current rate plus half of what the middleman get.  Happy Techs and Happy Foxtel.

What a Stupid Comment…………….


Better Technicians for Foxtel, Will NOT Mean stronger customer Base for Foxtel. It is Only Better Content from Foxtel that can achieve that……..

YOU don’t seem to understand these very basic & simple things….????

But your still demanding that the company pay You HALF its profits + what you are getting now…….?????

What a Fcuking Joke............


This is another good example that this thread was set-up to Slander BSA & other companies on DTV Forum.



Cheer’s





Baja

[GaryCook]

The Baja, on 02 May 2013 - 11:45 PM, said:

What a Stupid Comment…………….
Better Technicians for Foxtel, Will NOT Mean stronger customer Base for Foxtel. It is Only Better Content from Foxtel that can achieve that……..
YOU don’t seem to understand these very basic & simple things….????
But your still demanding that the company pay You HALF its profits + what you are getting now…….?????
Cheers
Baja

To have truly good customer service the culture must be enterprise wide, a successful organisation can't have good customer service in one area and poor customer service in another.  If a customer's entire contact with Foxtel is fraught with poor service then alternatives will be actively sought out.  If there is no pay TV competitor then alternatives such as streaming will be used. Foxtel has a rapidly growing problem, it's customer service standard by all measures is very poor and the market is approaching maturity ie; there aren't a lot of new customers left to acquire.  Hence why they are heavily promoting to what were previously not Foxtel's demographic with "no box" services.  Someone at Foxtel will eventually work out, hopefully not too late, that customers lost due to poor service can not be replaced.  That retaining existing customers is far more cost effective.

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that poor customer service pushes unhappy customers to streaming, once that happens they are unlikely to come back.  Whatever content Foxtel provides can not compete in that market.  The answer is actually quite simple, don't piss your customers off with poor service and they won't feel the need to seek alternatives.


Cheers
Gary

[GaryCook]

It is erroneous to view being "polite & courteous" as somehow the ultimate definition of customer service.  Sure it's one part, but it's not the whole.  A simple example, 'cause I'm a simple guy, if a service tech can't fix my Foxtel because he isn't paid enough to carry the right equipment and/or spares then it doesn't matter how "polite and courteous" he is.  It doesn't hurt, but it doesn't fix my problem.  Similarly if the service tech isn't paid enough to afford a decent vehicle and it breaks down, thereby missing my appointment.

Human nature, and more than one study, proves that an unhappy employee passes that on to customers.  More relevantly, good face to face customer service has the most effect on building customer loyalty.

Dissatisfied service techs are hardly the only example of Foxtel's poor culture towards customer service.  It's endemic in all areas of the organisation and they are rapidly learning the effect of that on their business is permanent.


Cheers
Gary

Edited by DTV Forum Mod, 04 May 2013 - 11:56 PM.
Quote deleted

[Garryman]

I hate to tell you Baja, as a Foxtel Service Technician you are the face of Foxtel. You are the closest customer support person once you have entered the premises.

If you have EVER worked for anything to do with Pay tv you would understand how often customer service plays a role, you don't just throw up a dish and run away from the location. Customers want cabling done in a specific manner (often the worst possible way) or want the dish in the furthest spot from the outlet, most often if you can't accommodate this they just don't want you to install it (thus Foxtel Looses a customer.) Now when the pay is high enough most techs don't worry about spending 30 minutes or more running cables in stupid ways, however when they are quite LITERALLY loosing money if they actually do what the customer wants they just won't do it. Foxtel looses a customer (perhaps for a very long time as the customer may believe it can't be done) and that tech has technically given a bad customer service experience.

This is not a random and rare issue, I had this thing happen more than once a week for the 4 odd years I was a contractor. So yeh, customers are the ones who get most effected by any of these issues.

If you have never done this type of work before you cannot possibly understand how many different ways this job can get challenging, when you don't have the money to actually solve these challenges then the customer is the one who suffers. The way you are constantly stating that 'you are only installing a dish' makes it seem like you haven't had much experience in running cable in any residential or multi-story apartment complex before.

::UPDATE::

BSA has increased some of the rates, I haven't seen by how much but they have changed reconnects and add outlets quite a bit. Its up to the still working contractors to see if this is enough.

Edited by Garryman, 03 May 2013 - 08:33 PM.

[Tazzy2Heads]

Hi Guys,
I sympathise with you all trying to make a buck these days doing what on paper seems a fairly straight forward job but in reality it is
far from it with all the variations of the installations,building construction difficulties and lots of lost time and money travelling between jobs all for basicly a fixed rate of pay per job.
In another life I spent 15 years or so working as a subcontract company in an industry where the work was 90% indoors and the
work was a lot easier and less complex than the Satellite TV industry, and I can say nothing has changed.

Subcontracting pretty much always means a lot longer working hours than the person working for wages, It is a fact of life for the
subcontractor.
The rates you are going to be paid are going to be set by the bean counters and number crunchers who have no idea what it
is like out in the  real world most of the time and if they did know once it was that long ago they have forgotten.They will look at how
long it takes to install the product under ideal conditions in the back room and work out a theoretical hourly rate from that.In reality
of course it is never enough, they don't seem to ever factor in running costs, lost time travelling and from bad weather and any of the other ever increasing costs,they work on the theory that all jobs are pretty much the same and about 20 minutes apart.

Some installers in some areas will make good money for their long hours others in areas where the buildings are old or there
is a lot of travelling involved are going to struggle,thats the way it is.
The installers where I was working refused to work in some areas because of the travelling time and job difficulty once you got there and were not making any money. We were lucky the company involved was nowhere as big as a Pay Tv company and we
could talk  to the bean counters direct and ended up getting a 10% loading on the rate of pay in certain post code areas which
was not enough but helped a bit .

I was able to spend a month or more with an installer before I started so I pretty much knew what I was getting into and I already
had the tools and vehicle which made things a lot easier with the learning curve, but you still had to put in the hours. If you can't
do that for what ever reason you are probably going to find the job is not viable as a money earner for you and should look hard at
your costs and earnings and consider something else, its not worth the stress involved all round if you are going backwards.

In theory subcontracting to a big company should work, they supply the work and materials and pay you ,its all good, but factoring in the overheads these days and the pay rates can make it dam hard.

You have to be well organised in your approach to work,have an organised vehicle, good quality tools and a good system to
install the job so that you can do a good job as quickly and easily as you can to keep the hours to a minimum.
Keep your receipts for EVERY work related expence you can legally claim to pay as little tax as possible.

Good to hear Foxtel have possibly fiddled the pay rates,hope its a positive outcome for the installers.
Keep on plugging guys,
Tazzy

[Storm AV]

Do yourselves a favour-ignore Baja-he is a ignorant fool, its really easy just go into your user settings and click on him and the ignore button-I'v done it for the other BSA/Foxtel employees who come in here and attack genuine grievances against their companies.

Tazzy-the big problems the guys have is:
the lack of work,
increasing materials costs-inability to buy materials elsewhere due to unfair practices(BSA forced Hills to increase the prices on their dish kits, lnb's and gutter mounts to prevent techs from buying elsewhere),
increase in trainees that takes more $$$ away from techs and increases the poor workmanship.
There are more issues but I think this is enough for our little friends to try and get their greedy heads around!

[Eddy Current]

I noticed BSA were very cagey about stock prices. Just out of curiosity what do they charge for dishes, mounts, LNB's multiswitches etc..

[Garryman]

We have to supply our own stuff last I heard, I imagine that has changed by now since I left but at the general meetings they where holding we where told to 'go to hills directly for your stock'

[Storm AV]

Interesting Garry, a good mate of mine still working for BSA only last week picked up stock from the BSA warehouse-It was about 6 or 7yrs ago bsa forced hills to raise prices and even pressurred techs by obtaining details of what stock techs(via account invoices) were buying from hills mainly at Castle hill-1st hand info not propoganda! This came directly from a QA at the time to myself-BSA claim they make nothing on stock sales to techs but dont want them buying stock from anyone else!

[digiready]

BSA awarded the FTA Upgrade Govt contract for Sydney.

Let the games begin!!!!

[Storm AV]

God help us digi.......

More unskilled piss poor BSA work to be done.....I hope they go to BAJA's mums and grandmas houses and do a pathetic job-he would have a genuine reason to carry on like a fool then!