Wade4Wireless

Wireless notes about Not getting Paid


Not getting paid, a LinkedIn response:

My friend Ken Schmidt of “Steel in the Air” said I should publish this as a post, thanks Ken, here it is.

If you want to read the original question and other responses, here is the link. I think that we often blame the other guy, that’s the default. “It’s not my fault!!!” If you are the climbing company, you blame the turf vender. If you’re the PM of the Turf vendor, you blame the climber or the carrier. The carrier’s PM will, by default, blame the climbing company. However, it’s deeper than that. In fact, it’s because over the years, each group was guilty of not paying for their specific reasons. The industry continues to mature, but remember, there are very immature people in this industry. Because of the few bad apples, the industry will continue to ensure that history repeats. 

I tried to stay silent on this because there is a lot of history here and I didn’t want to step on toes. 

So much for that strategy.

Where to begin, oh yeah, let’s work from the carrier back, and you will see how if one cog in the machine gets lazy, greedy, or pissed off, then it creates a domino effect.

First off, years ago the carriers would delay final sign offs, close out acceptance, and more to delay payments. Not one of them, almost all of them. They could delay your payments by months, literally because they insisted on sending their person to each site. This eventually faded away, mainly because the better crews stopped doing carrier work. 

Carriers may be delayed, but the way deployments go today they know they have to pay the crews to maintain continuity. That’s why they prefer to deal with turf vendors, tower companies, and OEMs. They can offload quite a bit of cost and responsibility. Win-win for them.

Let’s talk about the turf vendors, including services OEMs and tower companies. Not tower crews, but the American Towers and Crown Castles of the industry. They cleaned up their act in the past 8 years, impressively, and they respect their vendors. It’s nice to see. 

However, back in the early 2000’s and again in the 2010 rollout, many turf vendors would do the following.

  • Just not pay crews and have standby crew ready and waiting.
  • Remove milestones and offer to pay upon completion, maybe they would pay and maybe they wouldn’t.
  • Chicken feed maneuver, meaning the turf vendor would give them a little, a percentage, but refuse to pay unless they commit to 5 or more sites, then pay them a little at a time. Many crews held on to the dream of getting paid right up until they went under. I had this happen to me and luckily, we were diversified enough to stop work immediately and walk off the site. Then we got paid to finish. 
  • Failing the closeout walk. This was a common mistake that crews made. The Turf vendor would miss something on the checklist or just not approve it. Sometimes they would do it not to pay them and sometimes the crew missed stuff and sometimes the crew just dropped the ball. No one person is to blame here.
  • Quality audit failures. These could be legit or a reason not to pay. That’s why third parties started doing QA walks and providing the carrier with the results in addition to the turf vender.
  • For a while some CSPs/Turf/OEMs would not accept any CRs. If you’ve ever done work at a tower site, you know this is just crazy. It’s part of the business. The changes would drive the crews to walk off the site, quit, or go under. 

Then there are the crew issues. They have so many problems.

  • Some can’t manage money and go under quickly. 
  • Some hire and fire employees or do not pay the ones they have.
  • Workers sometimes would be stranded out of town with no money.
  • Some crews had to walk away from work, then reduce staff.
  • Some climbers are not very good or not reputable. Either way, the company and job site suffer. 
  • Some climbers have issues and just leave or stop showing up. Part of doing business.
  • Some get in over their head, can’t do the work, or can’t complete the job.
  • Some fail the closeout and don’t get paid.
  • Some fail quality audits and lose work.
  • Some die in an accident, and there goes the company’s reputation. 

So, as you can see, the problem doesn’t lie with one group, it was a collective issue. Your complaint probably lies with the person you’re working for or with. Maybe you made some bad employee or vendor choices. Some crews get in over their heads. 

Some are committed to continuing even when they’re bleeding money. This makes their customers happy, but in the end, they run out of money. No loans can save them and they usually don’t have deep pockets.

The person that gets taken advantage of will be the first to complain. 

So as you can see, it’s a team effort.

With all of that said, the market does correct itself, eventually. We didn’t see these problems as often as we did in past deployments. 

Mainly because in this deployment there was a shortage of workers at the beginning. All parties depended on each other. Climbers leave the industry now knowing there is not a bright future in this industry. They realize, in many cases, it’s just a paycheck, not a career.

Of course, history repeats itself. When the deployments dropped off the workers were let go, again. They will all leave the industry and we’ll probably start over next time, if there is a next time.

Not in the response, summary:

I just want to summarize the best I could.

To be clear, I am not pointing fingers, only pointing out what I have seen over the last 30 years. It’s a shame this industry remains somewhat of a mess, but it’s cyclical work. That’s what happens, much like building construction.

The telecom industry has faced a domino effect of challenges, from carriers delaying payments to turf vendors engaging in dubious practices. This has led to a cascade of issues affecting everyone from tower companies to individual crews. The narrative highlights:

  • Carriers’ past practices of delaying payments, which have evolved due to the need for deployment continuity.
  • Turf vendors, like American Towers and Crown Castles, have improved their operations and now show respect for their vendors.
  • The struggles of crews with financial management, employment issues, and the quality of work.
  • The collective nature of the problems, emphasizing that it’s not just one group at fault.
  • The self-correcting nature of the market, which eventually finds balance.

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