Thank you Seti..

Oops again, one more lie popped out of you, you just can't help it as you are an ovomit worshipper...the just come naturally!! IUOE local 953 and the labourers out of San Antonio cover your area......but a lie is easier !!

@shitti03, the clueless idiot as usual, prevailing wages are not "set" by the feds, they are based on Union contracts with Union signatory contractors, not the rats that cut wages and work for pennies. BTW, yes I would be making what I make with or without the hall, it is called a skill-set, something you have probably never had or heard of.

No unions in our area , go to San Antonio if you want a union job, best I can do for you cause I would not hire you as all you ever do is make false accusations and insult people. Bad attitutudes like yours are just not worth messing with.

"" Prevailing wages are established by regulatory agencies for each trade and occupation employed in the performance of public work,[1] as well as by State Departments of Labor or their equivalents. Prevailing wage regulations are an important element in ensuring that public construction projects do not destabilize the local construction industry, in leveraging public works investments for supporting local economies and local governments, and to advance other priorities such as workforce development, green building, and greenhouse gas reduction. """ __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ "" More recently, "prevailing wage" has come to be known as a code word for "union wages", as the modern interpretation tends to identify union wages and benefits as the benchmark in a given community. In the United States, 86% of construction labor is non-union. "" not my words ...just the facts maam ! __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

the iceman:

@shitti03, the clueless idiot as usual, prevailing wages are not "set" by the feds, they are based on Union contracts with Union signatory contractors, not the rats that cut wages and work for pennies. BTW, yes I would be making what I make with or without the hall, it is called a skill-set, something you have probably never had or heard of.

Barbara, I must not have been tactful in my previous comment...I was not trying to be mean or demeaning...I had simply noticed a pattern in your speech when discussing your help and it is a classic symptom of the problem I discribed...If it doesn't relate fine...good for you...However your response was also right out of the book...so...anyway....what do you mean when you say you pay your help a percentage...this is sounding interesting....It certainly could not be because your help is not really your help?....Please do not tell me that your employees are actually Contractors disgised as your employees all of the benefits of a job except no insurance or social security...hmmm....say it ain't so...but if they were regular employees why are you paying them a percentage?....sounds fishy...

Barbara Jones:

No unions in our area , go to San Antonio if you want a union job, best I can do for you cause I would not hire you as all you ever do is make false accusations and insult people. Bad attitutudes like yours are just not worth messing with.

>>>>>>>>> And the LIES just keep coming....the Unions I mentioned have locals that cover your area....but for you it is cheaper to talk the talk that to pay Union wages and walk the walk!!

shitti03, brush up on your reading comprehension, your first paragraph blows your argument.

Robert, it is very simple. we profit share, we have a base pay that is quite a bit higher than the average wage in our area, and after expenses we pay a percentage of the profit as well. We have found that if people are invested in the job they make better employees, . And YES, most, NOT ALL, but MOST of the guys that work for and with us ARE contractors and have thier own biz and customers and that is the way they want it, and they set their own pay rates and bill us at the end of each job just the same as we do with our customers that we work for on a regular basis.. Finally, it is not yours or anybodies elses biz except the law/gov, lol, how we operate , and I only volunteer this much information because I think it is a fair way to operate even if it does mean we are most likely never going to be billionaires, and I have nothing more that I care to share or discuss along this line. We have been criticized by other biz owners and some or our customers in our area telling us we pay too much to workers and should keep more of the profit for ourselves or charge them less and pay less to workers, it has been an entertaining change being accused/ criticized by you and Iceman in the opposite direction, LMAO.

HARD NOT TO HOLD YOU TO THE FIRE WITH THIS NEW REVELATION!!! First they didn't know doodly squat and now they are "independent contractors" Robert hit it on the head....

Iceman, I know you are not as limited as you sound and you just DELIBERATELY ignored where I stated MOST BUT NOT ALL are independent contractors. LMAO And the independent contractors in many cases are just as bad as our employees about thinking they know everything about OUR biz, but don't know doodly squat. The independent contractors mostly do clean up work for us and they know THEIR biz of course, but they don't know everything about ours anymore than I know everything about theirs.

What don't you understand about the term " Set by Regulatory Agencies " Icy? What not specific enough, how about the next sentence " As Well as by State Departments of Labor or their Equivalents." ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I'm surprised that your even familiar with the word comprehension. Now if only you knew what it meant ! lol __________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

the iceman:

shitti03, brush up on your reading comprehension, your first paragraph blows your argument.

Seti, What Iceman and I are both saying is that Barbara is using the oldest trick in the book to get around the rules. You see it is very common for people to want employees but they also want to maximise profits and limit liability...this is very common in Landscaping and Construction work...So what they do is Hire "Independent Contractors" These are people who "claim" to be "self employed" and therefore you do not have to pay for their social security or have workmans comp insurance on them...You also do not take out any taxes for these people...Since they are "self employed" they are responsible for those things themselves...In most every case these people are in fact employees and like Barbara said they usually are not sharpest tools in the shed and ususally are not capable of keeping track of the tax issues alone...and they do not charge enough to even cover their taxes if they wanted to pay them...and the employers know that...that is why they do not just hire them in the first place...This little trick is EXACTLY how illegal immigrants enter the work force without any papers...They claim to be independent contractors... .............................................Of course Barbara will tell us all how she is a good person and does this to help the "contractors" and so on...but it is all just a justification for her actions...You see this whole setup gives both the employee and the employer a way to slide on the rules...It gives the employer a way to have a worker for less money and still have a clear conscience because you are encouraging self-employment, saving money and it is legal...it is not any of your business if the person is not able to pay the taxes on the money you pay them. It is not any of your business whether or not the person is buying health insurance for them and their families....What they do with the money is their business...But as Wall Street has shown us, just because something is legal does not make it right or Good...And do not think for a minute that Barbara is out trying to convince people to do this...probably not...The employees want to do this...they want to be "independent contractors"...in Landscaping and Construction people often pay a couple of bucks more per hour for "independent contractors" to help keep their conscience clear...the thought is that I will give them a few extra bucks to help with taxes and insurance and so forth....knowing full well that will never happen and the the person will use that money right away and never pay the taxes or get Health Insurance...but once again that is okay because hey it is their business on they spend their money.....What a crock of Poo!....Why do People like Barbara do this?...Normally she is very liberal...thoughtful, kind...so why get involved in this seedy behavior...Capitalism....The immigrant labor force has driven down wages to the point that to compete in businesses like Construction and Landscaping where the Immigrants are a major force many have had to find ways to lower cost to remain competitive in a market where all of your competitors are do this...the immigrants...they are all self employed...all of them...the whole crew...lol...as I said before..."independent Contractor" all of the hassles of a Job but without the benefits of a job, like insurace, taxes and Social Security.....It sucks...And no I am not attacking you Barbara, it may seem that way...but no I am not...You see I to am in the same boat...But what do we do?...like you I pay extra but to be honest I also know that money is not being used for those purposes...And besides I can't give enough extra to be the same cost as actually employing them...otherwise I would do just that....While I have been able to reduce some of my use of "contractors" by using temp services...this is more expensive......So we need to make some changes in our tax system...We need to change the immigration policies so that immigrants are legal and therefore do not undercut the wages...We need universal healthcare for everyone so that we do not have to be concerned that maybe our workers are not using their wages wisely and neglecting their personal needs...We need a BIG IDEA...yes the BIG IDEA...Basic Income Guarantee...

Robert you obviously have serious reading comprehension problems, I clearly stated that the contractors we use ARE REAL CONTRACTORS WHO DO HAVE THIER OWN BIZ AND DO NOT WANT TO HIRE ON AS FULL-TIME EMPLOYEES THEY WANT TO DO CONTRACT CLEAN-UP WORK FOR US AND THEY BILL US AT THE RATES THEY SET THEMSELVES. Those that want to work as full-time employess we pay as employees, I don't like your false accusations, you are getting as bad as Iceman.

Barbara, First off...you are taking this way to personally...Why do you use "contractors"?....To save money of course...and just how exactly is someone else able to provide you with unskilled laborers...clean up crews...for less than you can hire them yourself...This does not make sense...The only way they are able to even do it for the same cost as you could is if they do not pay for something you were...So if you are using contractors something is amiss...Also if you expect me to believe that you are able to operate a successful landscaping business in Texas without using illegals in some form....maybe not you directly but your "Contractors" are probably using them...this gives you plausible deniability...how they operate "their" business is not your concern....Barbara I am not trying to make you out to be some Bad person...All I am trying to do here is have an open and honest discussion on a real issue that to often is left undiscussed...everyone avoids the subject....There is of course one way that you could operate a landscaping business with all legal workers....If you concentrated on Government work that required documentation of Workers, Insurance etc...These projects are not accessible to the immigrant workers and therefore pay more and therefore you can charge enough to afford all legal workforce. ..................................Or please explain to all of us how your customers can say you should charge more for your services and yet you are still able to compete in a market dominated by illegal immigrants...Hmmm....sounds fishy to me....

To correct this issue we need to open immigration to all non-criminals...If you have employment here you should be able to enter legally and therefore the wages are not depressed...and we don't have to compete on with illegal workers...end of problem...this also reduces crime by ending the illegal immigration...and therefore the reducing the numbers of desperate people...Win/Win...next we add the BIG IDEA which provides a Basic income guarantee to all citizens and provides universal healthcare so we no longer have to wonder whether our contractors are providing for their employees...sweet...America needs a BIG IDEA...Basic Income Guarantee....

Robert, once again since you seem to have a hard time understanding we DO NOT WORK ILLEGALS and neither do the contractors we hire to do clean-up, and we hire contractors to do the clean-up because just like the people that contract with us to do their tree work for them they do not have full-time jobs for us to hire us as employees, we do not have full-time jobs to hire for the clean-up the contractors do.. LMAO. On small jobs we do our own clean-up with our regular crew and just need help on big jobs so the clean-up work that we hire contractors to do is NOT A FULL time job and hard to find anyone willing to work part-time, most men capable of doing clean-up work want full-time jobs and we have our regular crew for that. We also sub out shredding and other jobs for people that want us to oversee the work for them, many of them live out-of-town, in other states, etc. Sorry Robert but you think you know so much about our business, but you know very little and don't seem interested in real facts either. SAD

So you are trying to say that the landscaping industry in Texas is not dominated by Illegals...lol...Barbara as I said you are taking this way to personally and therefore won't even discuss the underlying issues I was bringing up...Quit being defensive and let us discuss the issues that I brought up which are that illegal immigration has made the wages for service businesses like ours stagnate for well over 20 years...this has made the use of "independent Contractors" soar...this is because employees realized that if they just called themselves self employed they no taxes or insurance would be taken out leaving them more take home pay...And sure some of them really do want a business but many just need a little more money and only do work for one or two clients and only work when they call...And Barbara you act like your business is something that is hard to figure out...lol...it is landscaping...No Rocket Science there...

Landscaping and commercial lawn service is just part of our biz ( we only do a few residential lawns because we have to charge tree service price, we do commercial lawns ) , and most of our biz is tree service with a bucket truck with wench , 2 hi-lifts.dozens of gasoline chain saws including pole saws of various lengths. Landscaping and lawn service are more often combined but usually not with a full tree service biz, actually most biz in Texas are either lawn service , landscaping, or tree service, not all three. And I don't know about other areas in Texas but our area is NOT dominated by illegal or even legal immigrants doing the work, like I said in our area border patrol is very active and effective and fines are enforced quite diligently and the prejudices against immigrants are rather intense which is apparantly a very strong deterrent. I expect it is more like you are describing in large metropolitan areas and the loss of good paying jobs has more to do with an increase in independent contractors than anything else. Well over 30% of all jobs in Texas are minimum wage jobs that do NOT provide health insurance, etc. universal healthcare would be the best solution, I would never agree to anything that would guarantee income to lazy good for nothing slobs, druggies or alcoholics, etc. that just don't want to work, I believe working for a living and the struggle to attain success builds character, strength, in many cases empathy, and all the qualities that make a person a better person. I find the people that have had it too easy in life born with a silver spoon, or just good at scamming the system and living off of the work of others are usually lacking in empathy and most of the qualities that I think are necessary to ensure future generations do not become weak, pathetic, greedy, selfish takers who think the world owes them, and are encapable of giving, contributing, sharing, etc. etc. .

Let me put it this way Barb. If you ever run for public office I will move to Texas, and do everything i can to get you elected. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Barbara Jones:

Landscaping and commercial lawn service is just part of our biz ( we only do a few residential lawns because we have to charge tree service price, we do commercial lawns ) , and most of our biz is tree service with a bucket truck with wench , 2 hi-lifts.dozens of gasoline chain saws including pole saws of various lengths. Landscaping and lawn service are more often combined but usually not with a full tree service biz, actually most biz in Texas are either lawn service , landscaping, or tree service, not all three. And I don't know about other areas in Texas but our area is NOT dominated by illegal or even legal immigrants doing the work, like I said in our area border patrol is very active and effective and fines are enforced quite diligently and the prejudices against immigrants are rather intense which is apparantly a very strong deterrent. I expect it is more like you are describing in large metropolitan areas and the loss of good paying jobs has more to do with an increase in independent contractors than anything else. Well over 30% of all jobs in Texas are minimum wage jobs that do NOT provide health insurance, etc. universal healthcare would be the best solution, I would never agree to anything that would guarantee income to lazy good for nothing slobs, druggies or alcoholics, etc. that just don't want to work, I believe working for a living and the struggle to attain success builds character, strength, in many cases empathy, and all the qualities that make a person a better person. I find the people that have had it too easy in life born with a silver spoon, or just good at scamming the system and living off of the work of others are usually lacking in empathy and most of the qualities that I think are necessary to ensure future generations do not become weak, pathetic, greedy, selfish takers who think the world owes them, and are encapable of giving, contributing, sharing, etc. etc. .