BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Auto technicians are paid differently than people in most other industries.
United Service Workers Union Political Director Connor Shaw said techs are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act and they get paid by the job instead of the hour.
"Independent folks go do a time study and say this job takes this many hours and that's what technicians get paid on," Shaw said.
He said the independent time studies set the pay scale for everything except warranty work. That is controlled unilaterally by the manufacturers who are also the ones paying the dealerships for the jobs.
"They were doing work for free basically," Shaw said. "They couldn't do the job in the amount of hours that the manufacturers were saying so this bill corrects that and brings what warranty work pays on standard with every other part of the industry."
Earlier this week, the New York state Senate passed legislation that will bring warranty work in line with other auto tech work. The Assembly passed the same bill late last month.
On the Senate floor, Southern Tier Republican George Borrello, one of only two people who voted against it, expressed concern the additional money would not be passed on to the technicians but the manufacturers would pass on their cost to the consumers.
"This bill is saying here are the parameters by which New York now will become less business friendly, more expensive, more expensive to buy a car," Borrello said.
Union Automotive Director Peter DeVito believes that is a weak excuse to try to continue to pay workers less than they deserve.
"Over the last five years, car prices have increased an average of 32%," DeVito said. "Nobody until today has said, hey we need to decrease car prices because the customer's suffering."
He said what the legislation will do is allow technicians to do the work they need to do, right, the first time.
"Like in any situation and in any job, when you're up against a deadline, you work faster and sometimes not as good because you are now rushing to get through, looking at the clock, what you're trying to get done," DeVito said.
The union said it is confident the governor will sign the bill.