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Ocm you spewed more crap than a ten cent preacher on a street corner. No wonder you are unemployed. Bremco employees know when they take the job they will be out working in adverse conditions. Duke power employees know when they take the job they too will be out in adverse conditions. Ocm do you think that bremco are the only ones that work in snow and cold? They do up north each and every day.

Listening to your street preaching one that believed your crap would see no need in having a bremco or skyline board. Since they are so honest there is no need to have a utilities commission either.

I see you know nothing about markets either.

underdog2 (view profile)

Posted 6:57 am, 10/20/2014

Ocm, while I cant prove with a link what the skybest crowd makes does it not throw up a red flag that a co-op its not transparent? Much like bremco I can and have post a link at to the second highest salary in the nation for a co-op with bremco. I did find their boards salaries of 20 grand plus insurance. Hard rock is obviously an employee and he has not disputed the pay. Two other posters have confirmed the perk of all the services. So ocm you cant sit back and say we have no proof. We have discussed the boards of both of these co-ops but mainly bremco. Their boards are perpetual for life. You dont get on one unless you are anointed to be a board member after one of them dies. I see they have duped you ocm into thinking they really have a board election.

I am not duped, and I spent years selling electricity and competing against a co-op. I know exactly how co-ops operate and how they perpetuate their boards - it's no different from than how the Hospital or other non-Profits work. Co-ops don't have stockholders to pay, so who do they pay? They pay their employees and their board. In a private for profit like Duke Power, they pay shareholders AND they pay employees and their boards.

If you don't like the service or the price, you should switch or move. It's a legal monopoly - something that is fully supported by the State and Federal government in order to prevent excess completion. If you live in Charlotte and you don't like Time Warner Cable and Duke Power and think they pay their CEO and employees too much, that's tough ****. You wont get nominated and voted onto their board either.

Personally I am amazed at the line work I see up here and the conditions in which they work. My men did not work in these conditions nor would I have allowed them to work in these conditions and the public be ****ed, my men were more important to men.

You can complain and ***** and moan about this but nothing will change, all you can do is follow Economist Charles Tiebout's vote with your feet model and leave the area and go to where you like the bundle of public services and accept the price. Utilities are not shopped like crap on the Wal-Mart shelf you take what is given or you pass.

All of these overpaid people are spending that overpayment on something - it might be a dinner out, it might be a truck, it might be a child's education, it might be anything, the point is the money is for the most part, in the local economy.

Don't lose sight of what "Efficiency" really is, efficiency is really rationing of service according to the return on the cost to serve. It's like medical care for grandma that will extend her life a year and cost $200,000 when granny is 90 years old. It's much cheaper on society to allow the old bird to die. However we tend not to do that.

The mission of the Co-Op, any co-op, is in part to make a certain geographic area a better place. Lower wages so that services are a tiny bit cheaper does not make a better place for the permanent residents.

The low pay, high efficiency model gives us Wal-Mart - an entity where the employees need to be in public assistance to make ends meet, but gives us cheaper products made overseas.

No thanks, I would rather pay more and know that someone local is making a good wage or that the Co-op has funds to spread around the county for whatever purpose.

It's hard to actually "waste" a dollar unless you set it on fire, it's easy to spend it on something that someone else "thinks" is a waste.

That whole Obama paid Skyline to install fiber is a joke. A buddy of mine who lives in Creston came home one day to find a contractor running fiber up to his house and it has yet to be hooked up. There is no interface or anything other than a piece of fiber sticking out of the ground next to his house mean while you can't get hooked up to fiber along 221 towards Deep Gap because it is not offered.

http://careers.touchstoneen...;t735=153e

Out of 10 jobs listed on this site the above was the only one with a salary. The schooling alone to do this job cant be taught by on the job training. Yet the salary is very low compared to the market.

Farmer I have a feeling that skyline is paying significantly more than a bremco lineman.

Ocm, while I cant prove with a link what the skybest crowd makes does it not throw up a red flag that a co-op its not transparent? Much like bremco I can and have post a link at to the second highest salary in the nation for a co-op with bremco. I did find their boards salaries of 20 grand plus insurance.

Hard rock is obviously an employee and he has not disputed the pay. Two other posters have confirmed the perk of all the services. So ocm you cant sit back and say we have no proof.

We have discussed the boards of both of these co-ops but mainly bremco. Their boards are perpetual for life. You dont get on one unless you are anointed to be a board member after one of them dies. I see they have duped you ocm into thinking they really have a board election.

Personally I don't have an issue with the amount they are being paid. Skyline and BREMCO employees work their butts off when there are outages. I've seen BREMC employees in particular work in adverse conditions that many around here wouldn't tackle for $50 an hour but yet when the power is off or the television isn't working, the average citizen complains about the service rather than think about the conditions these guys are working in.

Sadly, that was an attempt on his part at a joke, and his brad will fit in a thimble and leave room for a couple pistachios in that thimble.

Either that's a joke or your brain will fit in a thimble.

Hooray for our fine President!!!!

I have heard that,the Obama Fund paid to bury the fiber optic. Win Win situation for skybest. Now they can keep raping the locals.

Blu, I think the two are a related issue

I don't have an issue with unknown salaries and benefits. I do have an issue with the lackluster overpriced services that we receive here versus other areas.

You haven't been paying attention have you? We've addressed before how these utility co-ops have their boards tied up and controlled so that no unwanted outsider can get elected. Only their official nominees can get on.

As for your theory that people paid less would take the training and go somewhere else, well, you've just proven that you don't have a clue about this part of the world or the local work force. Other companies in this region have similar positions that pay around half of skylines rates, and they have no problem keeping employees. A good portion of people from this area would prefer to stay here, even if they could make more somewhere else. But that aside, it makes no sense for a co-op to be paying more than other employers in the area. Like a typical government employee, you just can't get your head around the idea of why everyone doesn't just want to throw money around

I bet they were born complaining they came out wrong!!

Why stop there, next they'll be complaining the area gas station attendants are the reason for the high gas prices....

As with so many topics, there is nothing linked that shows the salaries, job descriptions, etc. Just an allegation then a debate over the co-op paying people too much money to do something.

Fins (view profile)	Posted 3:43 pm, 10/19/2014
OCM, you are another one that misses the point regularly. The issue with this is a publicly owned co-op paying more than the going rate of private sector jobs in metropolitan areas.

1. As usual people make allegations without any empirical backup.

2. The co-op has a board, if you don't like them run for the board.

3. When I hear about people *****ing about things like this, what I usually find is that someone they do not like is making some money.

4. In a metropolitan areas you have access to real amenities, housing that you can sell to another buyer, many, many inducements for skilled people. In Ashe County you will find no amenities, not even a public pool, bad winter conditions and a host of other issues that drive young people with prospects away from Ashe County. It might be difficult to imagine that you would have to pay more for someone to work here, but that's a reality and before you start talking about training someone to do the job cheap, almost anyone you train cheap will take that training and go to where there is more money, unless of course they are wedded to a rocky outcrop of family land

5. I guess BREMCO's linemen are next.

I removed a few posts that were off topic and/or trolling.

OCM, you are another one that misses the point regularly. The issue with this is a publicly owned co-op paying more than the going rate of private sector jobs in metropolitan areas.