Off My Chest
RULES:
I am looking for mods!
1. The "good" part of our community means we are pro-empathy and anti-harassment. However, we don't intend to make this a "safe space" where everyone has to be a saint. Sh*t happens, and life is messy. That's why we get things off our chests.
2. Bigotry is not allowed. That includes racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, and religiophobia. (If you want to vent about religion, that's fine; but religion is not inherently evil.)
3. Frustrated, venting, or angry posts are still welcome.
4. Posts and comments that bait, threaten, or incite harassment are not allowed.
5. If anyone offers mental, medical, or professional advice here, please remember to take it with a grain of salt. Seek out real professionals if needed.
6. Please put NSFW behind NSFW tags.
view the rest of the comments
He already complained about her raising her prices & being """too expensive""", which is fucking absurd.
Her bid for the 2 seats were 25$ each. He only chose mine because she's been out sick all week & he needs them done by Friday.
I should talk to her next time she's in. Hopefully we can exchange contact info because he probably won't leave us alone together.
I know it's easier said than done, but this is exactly why unionization/collective bargaining exists.
Right now, you (and your fellow seamsters/seamstresses) have zero leverage in this relationship and will get fucked over 100% of the time. The only possible way for you to improve your situation is to gain some leverage, and the only way to do that is by organizing.
Careful about bosses telling tall tales. Happens in the contracting and piecemeal space a lot. Confirm with other seamstress. Hell, start a coop and poach clients directly.
It would be worth finding out why the other seamstress is quoting $25 for each seat. Are they trying to underbid you (or other seamstresses), is that rate sufficient for them, or do they just have no idea what their labour is worth?
If they'd normally bid higher but underbid to get the work in preference to you, you need to talk. You'll either need to work together or in some way set a reasonable rate between you. If they are underbidding to beat others, the market may be saturated, but from your post it sounds like there should be enough work for all.
If the rate is sufficient for them they either have lower living costs somehow, but yours sound low anyway, or they are producing pieces more efficiently than you are, so their effective rate is higher. If that's the case, you might want to talk to them to find out how, although they may not be willing to say.
If they just don't know what their labour is worth and the boss has pushed them to quote that much, you probably need to talk to them about that.
In summary: talk to them. They might not want to talk, which is their perogative, but you both might get more insight into the issue, and maybe find a way to boost your income in the process.
Fuck, that manager is a vulture.
Dumb question because I don't know your industry. What would a customer pay to have these 2 seats done that he is paying her $25 to do?
Very hard to answer. If it's a rectangle stapled onto a board: strip/cut+sew/upholster, about an hour? My shop rate is $100/hour. It can easily take longer with weird shapes, many seams, new foam ect...
If it takes 20 minutes to sew that's a fair price.
Your shop rate is what you charge the customer wanting the seat done right? So in our example here (allowing for speculation because we don't have specifics), the customer would be charged $100, and the internal labor costs would be $50 (because we were told there were 2 seats). So a 50% profit margin. However, that doesn't take into account any of the fixed costs of running the business or maintaining the machines. I also assume that this work has some amount of seasonality to it so having consistent work may be difficult, meaning larger fixed costs to cover time between paying jobs.
Does that sound right?