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Who is expecting a $150k wage floor? Edit: the union mentioned in the article. (I hadn't read it). It appears you're generalizing this union to represent oth

Who is expecting a $150k wage floor? Edit: the union mentioned in the article. (I hadn't read it). It appears you're generalizing this union to represent other unions. It's possible for one union to be exploitative while other ones to have merit. Just as some corporations behave responsibly while a few others blatantly disregard consumers and workers.

arjie 10y ago
> The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 14-14B lays out the wage floor for its operators at $73.91 per hour. That’s $150,000 a year before overtime, plus benefits equal to $32.50 an hour. When the operator is behind the controls of a tower crane, he gets a $2-an-hour bump. On weekends, when cranes are moved, pay doubles. With overtime, many union members earn half a million dollars a year. The union in the article. EDIT: I also wonder how they get so much overtime. Surely it couldn't be because of 'controlling the supply of labour'. Yeah, that's right. Give them their half a million dollars a year. It's only 'decent'.
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  So where are all the engineers who work for a handful of years and then retire as millionaires? Where are all the crane operators rubbing elbows with their fellows at Davos? I'll give you a hint: someone may trying to mislead you and inflame prejudices which have been carefully drilled into you over many years of media exposure.
- Bendingo 10y ago
  Assuming hourly rate of: 73.91 (wage floor) + 32.50 (benefits) + 2 (bump) = 108.41 And a 40 hour standard week: 108.41 x 40 = 4336 (weekly rate), 4336 x 52 = 225492 (yearly rate) Assuming double weekend rate, for 8 hours on both sat/sun: 108.41 x 2 = 218.82 (weekend hourly rate), 218,41 x 8 x 2 = 3469.1 (weekend rate, 3469 x 52 = 180394 (yearly rate) Therefore working 8 hours a day, for every day of the week (including weekends), for one year would earn: 225492 + 180394 = 405886 This is very big money but it's not 'half a million dollars'.
  - kelnos 10y ago
    80% of half a million is close enough, perhaps. But, if not, the sentence still works with "give them their $400k a year".
- ubernostrum 10y ago
  OK, so let's really do this, even though the other commenter got downvoted into oblivion just for daring to check the math. The claim is they make 75.91/hr when in the crane, 73.91 when not. Let's say they spend 6 hours a day in the crane, 2 hours not in the crane; that's 603.28/day. Five days a week is 3,016.40. 52 weeks a year would be 156,852.80. So we're at $156,852.80/year from 8-hour days of work. We need to somehow get to "half a million". By which I mean we need to come up with $343,147.20 in overtime. The quote doesn't say what the overtime rate is, but traditionally it's time and a half; At a behind-the-crane rate of $75.91, overtime would be $113.86/hour. The engineer would then need to work "only" 3,013 hours of overtime a year in order to hit that "half a million" target. Or 2,135 hours of overtime a year in order to hit the $400k another commenter suggests below. There are 8,760 total hours in a (non-leap) year and we've already used 2,080 of them accounting for 8-hour weekday shifts. So our engineer has 6,680 hours in the year left in which to work either 3,013 or 2,135 hours of overtime so we can bash him for making too much money. If he works an 8-hour shift every Saturday and every Sunday at the overtime rate, that only gets us 832 hours of overtime. We still need to find between 1,303 and 2,181 additional hours of overtime. That's an additional 3.5 - 6 hours per day every day for the year. So... "many union members earn half a million dollars a year". To get to that number, at the quoted wages, they would have to be working 14-hour shifts every day. Not "every week day with two week's vacation". 14 hours every day: 7 days a week, 365 days a year. To get to the $400,000 estimate the comment below thinks is reasonable, they'd only need to work 11.5 hours a day all 365 days of the year. And that's probably a low estimate: I got that number by assuming the engineer spends 6 hours of every working weekday 8-hour shift behind the crane at the higher rate, and 100% of overtime hours behind the crane at the higher rate. If he's spending any more than 2 hours per weekday not behind the crane he needs to work even more hours since he's paid a lower rate then. I hope nobody actually believes that these guys are genuinely working 11-14 hours a day, 365 days a year, or that if they are it would be wrong to massively compensate them for it. Of course, someone will point out that I didn't account for the $32.50/hour in "benefits". But how can I? What does that mean? How many jobs have you had where you said "oh, my rate is low but I also count an hourly benefit amount as part of my wages"? Do you genuinely, truly, honestly and actively make sure you include the cost of any employer matching on your health insurance or 401(k) as dollar value and lump it into your salary? I know I don't. But let's run with it anyway. Let's suppose the engineer gets 100% of his health plan covered by these "benefits", and what's more let's go high on it and assume that his health plan costs $5,000/month. If we only have him work 8-hour shifts 7 days a week we still need to make up a lot of money out of overtime or non-health-plan benefits: weekday wage = (75.91 * 6) + (73.91 * 2) = 603.28 weekend wage = (75.91 * 1.5) * 16 (hours in two 8-hour shifts) = 1,821.84 Full week = 5 * weekday + weekend = 4,838.24 Full year of 8-hour shifts 7 days a week = 52 * 4,838.24 = 251,588.48 Add in $60,000 worth of health insurance = $311,588.48 To hit the "half a million" we still need to find nearly another $200,000. Specifically, we still need to find him 1,655 hours of overtime at this point. That's 4.5 hours a day in a 365-day year, so we're at 12.5-hour shifts, 365 days a year, to hit $500,000 in compensation. A 401(k) doesn't help since his max contribution to that is $18,000/year, which is peanuts compared to the gap we need to make up to get him to $500,000. But at this point I think we can safely say that something is very fishy with what you've quoted. And to reference my other comment, the reason this engineer isn't hanging out with other millionaires is that he can't because he spends 12.5 hours a day, all 365 days of the year, at work in order to get to that "half a million" wage you're attributing to him. (except of course you know that the crane operators aren't really doing that, but that would sink the whole story...)

arjie 10y ago

> The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 14-14B lays out the wage floor for its operators at $73.91 per hour. That’s $150,000 a year before overtime, plus benefits equal to $32.50 an hour. When the operator is behind the controls of a tower crane, he gets a $2-an-hour bump. On weekends, when cranes are moved, pay doubles. With overtime, many union members earn half a million dollars a year. The union in the article. EDIT: I also wonder how they get so much overtime. Surely it couldn't be because of 'controlling the supply of labour'. Yeah, that's right. Give them their half a million dollars a year. It's only 'decent'.

ubernostrum 10y ago
So where are all the engineers who work for a handful of years and then retire as millionaires? Where are all the crane operators rubbing elbows with their fellows at Davos? I'll give you a hint: someone may trying to mislead you and inflame prejudices which have been carefully drilled into you over many years of media exposure.
Bendingo 10y ago
Assuming hourly rate of: 73.91 (wage floor) + 32.50 (benefits) + 2 (bump) = 108.41 And a 40 hour standard week: 108.41 x 40 = 4336 (weekly rate), 4336 x 52 = 225492 (yearly rate) Assuming double weekend rate, for 8 hours on both sat/sun: 108.41 x 2 = 218.82 (weekend hourly rate), 218,41 x 8 x 2 = 3469.1 (weekend rate, 3469 x 52 = 180394 (yearly rate) Therefore working 8 hours a day, for every day of the week (including weekends), for one year would earn: 225492 + 180394 = 405886 This is very big money but it's not 'half a million dollars'.
- kelnos 10y ago
  80% of half a million is close enough, perhaps. But, if not, the sentence still works with "give them their $400k a year".
ubernostrum 10y ago
OK, so let's really do this, even though the other commenter got downvoted into oblivion just for daring to check the math. The claim is they make 75.91/hr when in the crane, 73.91 when not. Let's say they spend 6 hours a day in the crane, 2 hours not in the crane; that's 603.28/day. Five days a week is 3,016.40. 52 weeks a year would be 156,852.80. So we're at $156,852.80/year from 8-hour days of work. We need to somehow get to "half a million". By which I mean we need to come up with $343,147.20 in overtime. The quote doesn't say what the overtime rate is, but traditionally it's time and a half; At a behind-the-crane rate of $75.91, overtime would be $113.86/hour. The engineer would then need to work "only" 3,013 hours of overtime a year in order to hit that "half a million" target. Or 2,135 hours of overtime a year in order to hit the $400k another commenter suggests below. There are 8,760 total hours in a (non-leap) year and we've already used 2,080 of them accounting for 8-hour weekday shifts. So our engineer has 6,680 hours in the year left in which to work either 3,013 or 2,135 hours of overtime so we can bash him for making too much money. If he works an 8-hour shift every Saturday and every Sunday at the overtime rate, that only gets us 832 hours of overtime. We still need to find between 1,303 and 2,181 additional hours of overtime. That's an additional 3.5 - 6 hours per day every day for the year. So... "many union members earn half a million dollars a year". To get to that number, at the quoted wages, they would have to be working 14-hour shifts every day. Not "every week day with two week's vacation". 14 hours every day: 7 days a week, 365 days a year. To get to the $400,000 estimate the comment below thinks is reasonable, they'd only need to work 11.5 hours a day all 365 days of the year. And that's probably a low estimate: I got that number by assuming the engineer spends 6 hours of every working weekday 8-hour shift behind the crane at the higher rate, and 100% of overtime hours behind the crane at the higher rate. If he's spending any more than 2 hours per weekday not behind the crane he needs to work even more hours since he's paid a lower rate then. I hope nobody actually believes that these guys are genuinely working 11-14 hours a day, 365 days a year, or that if they are it would be wrong to massively compensate them for it. Of course, someone will point out that I didn't account for the $32.50/hour in "benefits". But how can I? What does that mean? How many jobs have you had where you said "oh, my rate is low but I also count an hourly benefit amount as part of my wages"? Do you genuinely, truly, honestly and actively make sure you include the cost of any employer matching on your health insurance or 401(k) as dollar value and lump it into your salary? I know I don't. But let's run with it anyway. Let's suppose the engineer gets 100% of his health plan covered by these "benefits", and what's more let's go high on it and assume that his health plan costs $5,000/month. If we only have him work 8-hour shifts 7 days a week we still need to make up a lot of money out of overtime or non-health-plan benefits: weekday wage = (75.91 * 6) + (73.91 * 2) = 603.28 weekend wage = (75.91 * 1.5) * 16 (hours in two 8-hour shifts) = 1,821.84 Full week = 5 * weekday + weekend = 4,838.24 Full year of 8-hour shifts 7 days a week = 52 * 4,838.24 = 251,588.48 Add in $60,000 worth of health insurance = $311,588.48 To hit the "half a million" we still need to find nearly another $200,000. Specifically, we still need to find him 1,655 hours of overtime at this point. That's 4.5 hours a day in a 365-day year, so we're at 12.5-hour shifts, 365 days a year, to hit $500,000 in compensation. A 401(k) doesn't help since his max contribution to that is $18,000/year, which is peanuts compared to the gap we need to make up to get him to $500,000. But at this point I think we can safely say that something is very fishy with what you've quoted. And to reference my other comment, the reason this engineer isn't hanging out with other millionaires is that he can't because he spends 12.5 hours a day, all 365 days of the year, at work in order to get to that "half a million" wage you're attributing to him. (except of course you know that the crane operators aren't really doing that, but that would sink the whole story...)