I seen this movie before. In the 70s auto mechanics were destroying the economy

[MindPilot]

Emission controls, safety equipment and electronics made cars more difficult to diagnose and repair. The motoring public was faced with the sudden reality that they had to now pay smart people to figure out was wrong with their ride and guess whose fault it was that no ordinary Joe was going to be able to afford to own a car anymore. Yep, the poor bastard doing the work. The was actually a California Representative who authored a bill to cap auto technicians' income! Not dealer parts markups, not the shop rate, and certainly not F&I, but how much the guy who actually gets his hands dirty can make.

So this idea of blaming whatever is wrong on the nearest working stiff is nothing new.

[Luminous Animal]

1. Link please.

[MindPilot]

2. Waddyamean "link please?" I lived it.

I'll try to recall that pol's name, but it happened before the Internet so there may not be one.

[Luminous Animal]

3. Okay, evidence for what you lived. Evidence that it was controlling the wage of the working stiff

rather than the gouging from the shop owner.

[MindPilot]

4. I think you totally misunderstood what I wrote.

Nobody was controlling anything. The nature of the technology drove the costs up...one politician's answer to the problem was to attempt to limit the income of the people doing the actual work.

[Luminous Animal]

5. Again. Proof. Proof that there was a law proposed to limit how much a shop

could pay their hourly wage employees.

[left is right]

13. I remember it

I was outrage because my dad was a mechanic and I knew him to be an honest man who never overcharged a single person and yet there was all this talk about capping his ability to charge a customer for genuine work

[jberryhill]

6. It worked two ways

It was more of a sideways argument against safety and emission controls in automobiles. It was more along the linesof "but nobody will be able to fix your car!"

Of course now every shop can read the on board diagnostic computer

[Morning Dew]

7. Here's a fun article from 1974 on soaring auto repair cost

I went to see if I could find any info on that legislator's bill and found this:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=LgswAAAAIBAJ&sjid=5_oDAAAAIBAJ&pg=7324,7497422&dq=auto+mechanic+pay+restriction+1970+bill+california&hl=en

[Hannah Bell]

8. i think such things were rather lost in the anger over gas prices.

and in fact, the article isn't talking about computer diagnostics, it's talking about spark plugs & the general inflation gas prices set off in the 70s:

"Experts in the field say the increases are caused by the same inflationary pressures that are driving up prices for almost everything else."

70s saw extensive stretches of double-digit inflation.

[Morning Dew]

10. I especially enjoyed the repair shop labor rates:

-snip-

In Seattle, the average rate charged by garages for mechanic's labor has gone up 16 per cent to $14 an hour since last spring. Some new car dealers there now charge $19 an hour. In Raleigh, N.C., rates were increased to $10 form $8 recently at several shops.

-un snip -

Interesting to look back on.

[joshcryer]

9. Nice find, here's more, about the the need for 200k auto-mechanics:

http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=dXdIAAAAIBAJ&sjid=3GADAAAAIBAJ&pg=5219,3536837&dq=auto+mechanic+1970+california&hl=en

[Morning Dew]

11. Nice. Thanks for finding that.

Man, I love the internet.

[joshcryer]

12. Me too. I believe I found the guy who was trying to limit wages / profit: William H. Lancaster.

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/latimes/access/59880591.html?dids=59880591:59880591&FMT=ABS&FMTS=ABS:FT&type=current&date=Aug+26,+1988&author=RICHARD+C.+PADDOCK&pub=Los+Angeles+Times+(pre-1997+Fulltext)&desc=Assembly+OKs+Bill+to+Broaden+Smog+Checks&pqatl=google

Unfortunately it is a pay-for article, and the California State Assembly website only goes back to 1993, so the text of the bill is unavailable (in fact none of Lancaster's bills are available on the CSA website search, so I cannot even determine if he was a dirty conservative or what; mind you the 70s conservatives weren't as bad as todays).

This of course is a sort of double-edged thing, because the pollution reduction requirements were absolutely necessary, and for the fastest penetration there is an argument to be made that the cost to do it should have a max number set, in order to get as many people as quickly as possible converted.

[Morning Dew]

14. He was a Republican.

http://cdn.calisphere.org/data/13030/vz/kt929028vz/files/kt929028vz.pdf

[joshcryer]

15. Saw that but missed that that was in '88. :/

[MindPilot]

16. Thanks for all the research!

Interesting articles. The name William Lancaster doesn't sound right; IIRC, the guys name was Quackendale or something like that. It wasn't Quackenbush--who I believe went on to become California's insurance commissioner, but a similar name.

Again, thanks for all the Googling--last night I was too bleary-eyed to do more than a few unproductive lookups.

[spanone]

17. not new, but effective. pit working man against working man.