Boss taking you for granted

[anonymous-user]

Hi, my son ( he is 22 year old ) works with a self-employed roofer and is getting taken for a ride. . . he turns up every morning at 7.45, picks him up and returns him about 5pm ( midday on a Saturday ) and he walks away with only £300 a week. . . .is normal wages for that kind of hard graft?
The reason I ask is the roofer charges about £200 per hour so there is plenty room for paying a decent wage or is he taking the p***ss

[anonymous-user]

Surprisingly there is only the roofer and my lad ( his mates he has grown up with earn a lot less than him but don't have anything near the work load/hours )

[anonymous-user]

19k ain't a lot but for the work is very poor in my eyes. . . .£200/hour is about right on priced work ( sometimes a lot more ) and the 2 of them either do a full day or chargeable hours at about 200 or 2 smaller jobs at 3/400 an hour. . . ALL ON PRICE WORK so customer can't flinch but 95% of the time it's done very quick thanks to the help of my lad who works hard for him, all the customers recommend him as he turns up on time and does a good/clean job

[anonymous-user]

Assuming he's doing 8 hours work a day then 4 on weekends he is being paid £6.81 an hour. What tax is he paying. Is this after his tax?

Also the £200 an hour thing sounds very odd indeed. It might work out like that if you take total job price and divide it by time but that won't include materials and other costs. I'm less certain here but it still seems excessive.

If he is not being paid min wage, that's one thing, if it's the idea you think he should get more then he should either speak to his boss or consider working for some other roofer who will pay him more.

[anonymous-user]

Very interesting comments and hear what you all saying and agree with most of it, we are in Blackpool and there are lot's of roofs and the suppliers for the industry are always packed as others are for different trades, the plumbers/joiners/sparks etc all seem happy and in full employment and recon son should shut up and learn as most of you suggest and get his own van and get out there and do it for himself; suppose I'm just old fashioned and think the numbers are all too high but if that's the price today for a tradesman then so be it and wish every youngster all the best as it's beyond me in the cash involved

[anonymous-user]

In all great comments from you all and recon he is not toooooooooooo badly done by after reading your comments, I still recon the roofer is expensive, , , , I didn't think that anyone got that sort of money these days, I assumed we were just coming out of a recession and heading into another one!

[anonymous-user]

£200 an hour?

I missed my vocation earning less than that as an IT Director.

Roofer earns £400k pa. I can see the headlines now

[anonymous-user]

MattCharlton91 said:

£200p/h won’t be accurate. The roofer may have earned that a couple of times on profitable jobs, or “touches” as I call them. But they are massively few and far between.

My guess (being in a trade - fencer) :

Roofer is pricing day work at anywhere between £350/£450 per day, making approx £2k a week before tax. Out of this comes his public liability/vehicle insurances, wear and tear on tools, fuel etc.

Is he paying your old boy cash or through the books? £300/350 take home per week sounds about right given the hours with no commuting costs. Leaving the roofer/employer with let’s say £1500 before tax.

If your lad thinks he’s worth more, has the experience to be worth more, then that’s a conversation he has to have with his boss. How long has he been doing the job?

My view is if he is purely a fetch/carry/lift Labrador, he’s on the right money. Semi skilled will be worth £80/100 per day. Experienced will be worth £120/40 per day.

Thanks for the input