Class action lawsuit

[Flatrater]

This affects everyone and I see this instore in the furture against all the automakers. this is a current problem I experience daily from General Motors.


Dealer Techs Announce Lawsuit Against Ford


DEARBORN, MI - Ford technicians and dealerships have announced plans to file a class action lawsuit against the Ford Motor Co. claiming unfair warranty labor practices. Mark Ward, a 19-year veteran Master Ford technician, is the initiator and leader of the group, having spent a year and a half researching and preparing materials for the case. He says he wants to make sure the case is "irrefutable."
"We're tired of not being paid for what we do," he says. He is currently recruiting technicians and promoting the case on a national tour and hopes to launch the suit within 60 days.
Ford pays dealerships and technicians a flat rate for warranty repairs. The technicians involved in the case complain that Ford's warranty repair times are not realistic and that they lead to revenue cutbacks for them. In addition to losing money, they say having strict labor procedure times can lead to rushed labor, causing safety issues and poor satisfaction results for customers.
Ward says that one week he worked 44 hours in warranty repairs and was paid for only 33 hours of time.
Ward, with his colleague, Joe Young, are the creators and promoters of the Web site, www.flatratetech.com, a site to educate, inform and voice issues for Ford technicians. They created the site in 2000, after watching their salaries drop year after year.
It includes an online plaintiff enrollment form for the lawsuit, as well as message forums, commentary and resource sites. The Web site gets about 3.5 million hits per month and as of late April, 12,000 technicians have signed the petition.
"I just want to see people treated fairly," says Young, whose salary has dropped $32,000 from 1991 to 1999. After being injured in 2002, he became a full-time union organizer for Ford dealerships around the country. Young has been a Ford technician for 27 years.
Ford has engineers and technicians that calculate what they consider a reasonable working average for warranty labor repairs. Technicians, dealers and service managers walk through the process with the engineers in order to give more voice to the technicians, says Glenn Ray, public affairs manager for Ford's customer service division.
Kim Goering is the process development manager and is responsible for all of the service information that goes to technicians. "It's not just looking [at] and cutting labor times; it's looking at procedures and the ways of doing things," she says.
Her division performs more than 800 labor operations and procedures per vehicle line. That is equivalent to 250,000 labor operations in the past 10 years on all vehicles. Each step in a procedure, such as installing headlights, is individually studied and times are determined and tested according to what Ford refers to as an average technician, or one that is ASE certified.
Ford does have a "Dealer Request for Review" (DRR) process of service operations where technicians can dispute time needed to fix a certain repair. Goering's department aims to respond to these requests within 48 hours. Since January 2004, there have been 22 changes resulting in labor time increases, says Ray. In 2003, 167 DRRs were recorded; 19 operations were adjusted upward to provide more time, while the rest did not change.
Goering says that the end goal in her job is customer satisfaction and that dealership studies are fair. "What Ford technicians are getting paid is outside of my labor time world," she says. She suggests that other factors come into play with dealerships such as possible decreases in repair orders, dealer retail rates or other dealership relationships.
Ward says he would not encourage people to come into the dealership auto repair business because of the labor time issues and the small return on investment. "Satisfaction ? that's the only reason that keeps us here," he says. "Otherwise, we can kiss satisfaction good-bye."

[Pewter'01SS]

Can this case actually stand up in court? When a mechanic is hired, they agree to the flat rate so isn't this like anyone else sueing thier employer for too low of a salary. My friend went from hourly to flat rate and he loves it. He does have good weeks and bad weeks, but for the most part he thinks it's pretty fair. He works with a lot of mechanics that are not that fast or consistently to VERY poor work (i.e. damage customers cars, not correct initial complaints, etc.). Flat rate works out better for him unless a manifold bolt breaks off in the head or something (happened last week). Also the jobs kinda balance out, you get underpaid for intakes and overpaid for brakes. I'm not sure about the warrenty work but he was saying that there is a recall right now that pays 1.5 hours for 20 minutes of work. I'm not arguing with ya, flaterater, but I'm just playing devils advocate, I really can't see this going anywhere in court. Just my

[chaser29]

Today, everything can go to court.

With this suit, I hope he did his research and has a lot of TIME!!! A company this size, can make this last for years, and years... All the power to him..

[Flatrater]

Yes it can stand up in court!


Pewter'01SS
I don't know where your friend works if it is a dealer or what. But at the dealership level the carmaker pays what they want to pay and not what the job takes, year after year I have seen the times decreasing. I make less and less every year while I need to know more and do more.

All car makers use a process called shaving. Shaving is reducing the amount of money a tech makes on a job. All GM Tsb's are shaved by .3 tenths of an hour. All recalls are shaved by at least .2 tenths. The carmakers figure the tech will lose money the first 8 or 10 times but will find short cuts and make money in the end. Do you really want us finding short cuts to fix your car? Or do you want it fixed right the first time?

If I get a check engine light to work on I am given 18 minutes to pull the car in the stall, road test it and perform all tests needed to fix the problem. Do you see a problem with that? The cars are getting more complex every year and shortly the home mechanic will not even be able to work on his own car. Do you want an underpaid tech guessing making rushed guesses on your car just so he can make a living?

That is part of the problem but the other part that concerns this lawsuit is Ford is shaving 30% of the labor time from the techs and the dealers. Just 4 years ago Ford shaved 30% of the labor times and now they are at it again. It has forced the techs to make less than minimum wage on some jobs. Remember the owners pay the same rate no matter how long the job takes.

chaser29
The research has been done, there is lots of money behind this lawsuit. Its not going away. What worries me is if the win or lose. If they win other car maker's techs will follow suit. I for one will have no choice in the matter and will side with the lawsuit. But if they lose you will see many and many dealership techs forming unions. Right now there is a major push to start unions in the dealer's shops.


BTW John Kerry supports unions and the "Employee free choice act" going thru congress right now.

[Pewter'01SS]

Well...the only part of what you said that I will disagree with is the "shortly the home mechanic will not even be able to work on his own car" part. I think that moment in time passed a few years ago. My dad's got a 2000 STS and if I don't have my friend plug in the Tech II, I'm screwed! Yes, my friend does work at a Cad, Olds, GMC dealership and it's his opinion that you guys are just underpaid period, not so much by 15 or 20 minutes but just all around, you guys are getting the shaft. He says that with the level of knowledge you guys need (and I HAVE looked at the ASE study guides ) there is no reason why he is driving a truck that is always breaking down. My whole point was that you guys agreed to make a certain wage, but if the auto makers are slowly decreasing the times (which is lowering your salary), I can't see how that is legal.

[lamehonda]

I think that the consumers getting the cars repaired would have a better case than he would. he has no damages outside of the fact that he works to slowly according to ford motor co.

[Flatrater]

Originally Posted by lamehonda

I think that the consumers getting the cars repaired would have a better case than he would. he has no damages outside of the fact that he works to slowly according to ford motor co.

Actually several states have laws on this California for one has a law that is the tech has to buy his own tools that he can make no less then 2 times the minimum wage.

But I guess you fail to see the problem!

[rlangnecker]

I'm a gm tech looking for help w/ the same problem of cut labor times. How are labor times set? I was told that a repair is done "by-the-book" or per all the instructions w/ only hand tools and the specialty tools if needed meaning no power tools. If this is the case, then all of the evaporators i've replaced should pay about 2 hours more than the book says. I can beat the book time, but it's just not worth my time. It's like they forgot that we invest in our tools to make us more efficient, but we don't get a return on that investment because of cut time. I also spend too much time finding a manager to sign for olh (other labor hours) for diag that required removal of components to get to what i'm testing. Then i get to play "let's make a deal" with that time (olh) because they don't want to pay for a proper diagnosis for a "fixed right the first time".

[william309]

Yes, it can stand up in court. The customers need to know about all product lines and the unfair labor times.

[william309]

If the customer knew that a 10 hr repair was 4 hours and they paid 40 k for a car its not right.

[william309]

If every technician would say no it would help too.

[william309]

A gm tech should not be on this page. go talk to the gov about it.