[Closed] Living wage in bike industry

If you're in a high-skilled knowledge job you'll probably be ok but a mid or low-skilled job and you're screwed. The job is either automated, gone abroad, taken by an immigrant or pays so low you can't afford to take it.

I'd rather be highly-skilled than low-skilled, obviously, but "knowledge jobs" are very easy to automate, send overseas or get pay cuts in the light of the previous two. Construction/steelwork CAD can be outsourced to Manila in a matter of minutes; legal document review is done online in India, South Africa or Texas for peanuts - and now automated review by software is taking off so there's no people involved in first wave review at all; infrastructure (meaning actual infrastructure like sewers) design and management is being done by Bangladeshi firms - or the individual consultants are cutting their fees by relocating to Thailand. Those are just three casual examples.

Equally - in high value knowledge economy jobs there are effectively no immigration controls. if the employee is valuable enough and the employer can pay the express processing fees, in most cases they can be at their desk within a month.

anyway...this is a side note to the main discussion...

I think if I personaly wanted to go back in to the bike industry (I realy wanted to stay when I was a mechanic but taking the time off to learn frame building I could not afford) I'd go the frame building and custom companetry route but also untilise my skills / tools and do ther small fabrication and engineering for other clients. diversification toD help cross subsidise. kind of like highpath engineering (if he is still going?)

but you don't have to go very far up the ladder to see people who are multi millionaires.

I know lots of people in the industry, from people who work part-time in bike charities to managing directors of big companies. Very, very few of them are multi millionaires. I don't think there's anyone in the industry with a yacht or private jet.

I'd go the frame building and custom companetry route but also untilise my skills / tools and do ther small fabrication and engineering for other clients

That's part of what I do, and while it's fun there's not a massive market for it. Becoming a niche framebuilder is a relatively popular thing nowadays - people go on a framebuilding course, design a fancy headbadge, grow a beard and get an Instagram account 😀

I'm kidding - a bit - but you have to look at why someone would ask you to build a frame for them instead of just buying off the shelf or going to one of the dozens of other builders. There's also the market of doing frame repairs and repainting, that's reasonable steady work, and there's building prototypes for independent inventors, that's a lot of work.

people go on a framebuilding course, design a fancy headbadge, grow a beard and get an Instagram account

Have yourself an internet Mr Cooper. 😆

I don't think there's anyone in the industry with a yacht

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He's also had a few AC's.

Well it's a sailing dingy but is it a yacht ?

Still about £20k for one of them. In fairness he does win a lot in it...

bencooper

I know lots of people in the industry, from people who work part-time in bike charities to managing directors of big companies. Very, very few of them are multi millionaires. I don't think there's anyone in the industry with a yacht or private jet.

I don't doubt that at all, but just through happy accident over the last year and a bit I've seen more and more people (small brand owners, sponsored riders,designers) who's lifestyle/homes/car collections/etc etc have been fairly eye opening. I say by happy accident too because more than one these individuals really went out of their way to conceal it.

I don't know if you're being snarky or serious but a yacht or private jet would imply super rich, which isn't what I meant. However imo, if you've got a million pound house, half a million pounds worth or cars, and many other assorted toys to me that's at least a millionaire status.

I worked in bike shops for long enough and know first hand most (the vast majority) people are not wealthy. However there's this image or perception spread around that everyone is some how beneficent or altruistic in their motives and it should be noted for the sake of the debate at hand that some people are getting very very wealthy from the bike industry.

We get a few at bespoked who apply to exhibit before even making a frame(Website and head badge sorted)! Even the top UK custom builders with full order books are not rolling in it. Once you get past building a few for your mates/family earning a living exclusively is no walk in the park.

Well it's a sailing dingy but is it a yacht ?

Depends what argument you want to have:
a) that dingy racing is cheaper than owning a "yacht". My 'dinghy' cost more than the most expensive 'yacht' my parents ever owned.
b) that everyone in the industry is infact "selfless volunteers, in it purely for the love"
c) that the fact B isn't true is a good or bad thing.

It's like any industry, there's roles and positions for people of all levels, at the top end I imagine the CEO's are earning salaries on a par with companies of similar sizes in any other industry, if they're not I'd query their fitness to be CEO's!

My point was that the head of a British company manufacturing and exporting products clearly has enough spare cash to make me think he's earning a salary appropriate to that role.

I don't think it. My point is more that with the additional skills learned through frame buildign and basic machining you can also do other work whilst still trying to do other work you love. Maybe you endup repairing some machinerry for a local bussiness fora week with your skills, but that helps to pay for a few more days working on frame to exibit, or help buy that fixture e.t.c.

There's a concept in economics that the value of a product (or a persons labor in this case) can be made up of more than just financial attributes which explains why similar items can cost different amounts.

So in the case of a custom frame builder, you could compare him to a welder. He may well earn less than a welder, but he regains that in job satisfaction. similarly a welder working for a charity drilling water wells in Africa will earn less than a welder working in the Oil and Gas industry*, similarly they earn less than their colleague working in the same job in Iraq as they earn 'danger money'.

Same reason an On-One CNC stem is £20 and Thompson is £50. Same weight, same safety testing, different brand, and the branding has value.

*same for everyone in that industry, there are some people who perceive it as morally wrong as an industry on environmental grounds. I'm no better an engineer than one any other industry, but I earn more because fewer people want to work here.

It's like any industry, there's roles and positions for people of all levels, at the top end I imagine the CEO's are earning salaries on a par with companies of similar sizes in any other industry, if they're not I'd query their fitness to be CEO's!

That's an interesting argument. How do you know someone's a good CEO? Because they're earning lots of money. Why are they earning lots of money? Because they're a good CEO!

It's that kind of emperor's new clothes argument that leads to CEOs earning 50x or 100x the average worker's salary.

Perhaps they have capital at risk on which they make a return?

True, but it comes back to that horrible interview question 'what value can you add to the company'. If youre a good manager or CEO then its probbably a lot, you could hire Dave from the pub for £20k, he'd probably not ruin the company, might not grow either though, and you could save say £100k a year in wages. Or you could hire the guy who wants £120k and has a track reckord of adding 100x that in value to the companies he has managed. There might be hundreds of people who could do the job well, but theres only ever going to be a few who can do it really well and have a track record of doing it well, and thats why they can earn the big money because on a fundamental level they really are worth it even if they dont appear to do much to earn it.

The problem with that argument is that the way they get a track record is by being a highly paid CEO - there's no control group of CEOs who aren't highly paid to compare with.

I'm not particularly talking about the bike industry here, by the way - despite the dinghy ownership above, I still think there aren't any bike industry CEOs earning anywhere near as much as a bank CEO.

I still think there aren't any bike industry CEOs earning anywhere near as much as a bank CEO.

i suspect there are none. Because earning £10million whilst adding £10billion in value is probably an acceptable ratio, a bike company is never going to be that big, or complex, or have that kind of growth.

The problem with that argument is that the way they get a track record is by being a highly paid CEO - there's no control group of CEOs who aren't highly paid to compare with.

absolute cobblers, Ben. CEOs get judged by their directors, shareholders and analysts by the metrics of their companies that are attributable to their leadership: sales, revenue, profits...not by their remuneration.

But how are they judged? Are there some low-paid CEOs out there with demonstrably worse sales, revenue and profits? At least with the banks, no - it's possible to run a bank so badly that you almost crash an entire economy, and still walk away with a multi-million pound payout.

And is it really true that running a company is much, much harder than running a large school, council or country? If it isn't, then why are CEO paid so much more than those leaders?

jimjam - Member
...I think a lot of people would like to paint a picture of the bike industry being populated almost exclusively by selfless volunteers, in it purely for the love, but you don't have to go very far up the ladder to see people who are multi millionaires.

There is a surefire way of making a small fortune in the bike industry.

But before I get to it, remember it's the low wages paid to bike shop staff that started this thread. I'm sure it would make an interesting study for a HR research thesis "How to pay peanuts and not get monkeys".

But yes, the small fortune.

First you do a detailed business plan..

Then find the perfect location.

Order your stock.

Recruit a mechanic - consult manual and insist a beard is grown for cred points (there's steroid creams if it's a lady mechanic) and insist they commute 30 miles each day on a singlespeed.

Expect trade to not conform to your business plan for a year or two. You'll probably have to discount a lot of the dud stock the bike reps offloaded onto the confident newby. "This will sell in days" only they forget to add "..at half cost price".

And most important, start with a large fortune.

CEOs get judged by their directors, shareholders and analysts by the metrics of their companies that are attributable to their leadership: sales, revenue, profits...not by their remuneration.

Scant little evidence that this judging actually changes anything, very few CEOs are fired for poor results and those that are just get another job as a CEO. It's very much a closed shop where head you win, tails you win.

epicyclo - Member
As far as employee value for wages is concerned, bike workers are it IMO.

As a care worker, I agree completely.
We usually have slightly lower wages, but that's fine, because looking after bikes is far, far more important than looking after people.

Scant little evidence that this judging actually changes anything, very few CEOs are fired for poor results and those that are just get another job as a CEO. It's very much a closed shop where head you win, tails you win.

Really? Is the football or commerce?

Rusty Spanner - Member
"As far as employee value for wages is concerned, bike workers are it IMO."
As a care worker, I agree completely.

Sorry, you're right.

However I understandably thought that this govt's policy had totally managed to eradicate the need for carers.
🙂

Not at all.

I can assure you that our selfish, greed obsessed culture is abandoning those in need in ever greater numbers.
🙂

But of course, people don't really matter.
It's sticking to the right ideology that's important.

I work full time as a mechanic for a not-for-profit bike shop. We aim mostly for people without much money. Any money we make goes towards working with people with NO money at all, like refugees and homeless people. Consequently, we don't make a huge amount of money! But we employ quite a few folk, at good wages (more than the living wage) and we run co-operativly so we have no bosses. We probably define the high-value, low cost bike shop employee stereotype! But I get more than when I was a care worker (which is so wrong) and I have low stress and high job satisfaction. I feel safer now than when I was a care worker, as my job is in my hands. I no longer fear redundancy, or any of the awful things that can happen to the low wage worker.

I don't care about the bike industry. I'm sure some buggers are making loads of money, but I know that in my little corner of it, there is a way to get on in life and have a wholesome, safe job, that means I don't fear being able to pay my rent. I'll never be rich. But that's ok for me.

mansonsoul - thank goodness for people like you

I wrote a response to bencooper but it may have been deleted for being too tedious. the short version: there are loads of metrics used to assess the performance of CEOs (of any significance). it's surely not surprising that capitalists put a lot of effort into capitalism?

edit: and obviously the amount someone gets paid has only a tangential relationship to how hard their job is, we all know that. otherwise social workers would get paid six times more than footballers.