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Funny that the article doesn't once mention unions as a factor that drives up cost. It's almost as if attacks on unions for making public works slow and expensi

Funny that the article doesn't once mention unions as a factor that drives up cost. It's almost as if attacks on unions for making public works slow and expensive are disingenuous.

magissima 8y ago
Indeed, the author even wrote another article explicitly refuting the anti-union argument. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/01/08/meme-weeding-unions-and-construction-costs/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/01/08/meme-weeding-u...
- thaumasiotes 8y ago
  It's an interesting refutation. The author explicitly claims the following: 1. Construction unions in New York, specifically, cause horrific and unjustifiable cost increases. 2. But unions in most of the country aren't in New York, and don't have the same power that NY unions do. 3. The problem is that New York is responsible for a lot of construction, and more sensible areas unthinkingly copy New York's awful, union-driven policies -- those other areas don't need to do things New York's way, but they don't have enough construction experience to know better. The author goes on to say that union-busting politics as they exist in the US won't solve the problem, but obviously believes that unions are responsible for significant parts of it. (And in fact says in so many words that in the absence of particularized US politics, union-busting would be somewhere from neutral to productive.) An immediate implication is that if you're worried about getting things built in New York, you should be trying to break up the unions there.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  That post has a few problems: - His line about the DART Orange Line is mixing three different projects (the actual Orange Line, the Trinity River Expressway, and the Dulles (VA) Metro extension) - He is mixing actual project costs with projected costs, as if the comparison is equivalent - The biggest problem, though, is that he is using "Right to Work" to mean "no unions", which is ridiculous. He even doubled down on that in the comments with the asinine statement "But in places with zero union density, like Texas". Those are just the problems I saw from ~10 minutes of research on the subject. Considering that, I don't put a lot of faith in his arguments.
  - abduhl 8y ago
    I noted similar issues as well. Particularly for the Silver Line (which he later calls the Orange Line) the guy neglects the fact that this is a government job, despite being in a Right to Work state, and is a federally/publicly funded project and so falls under Davis Bacon Act provisions which are strongly driven by union rates within the region. Especially for Silver Line, union rates in MD/DC have a large impact on the greater DMV area, including the Silver Line.
dmode 8y ago
While union can be a factor compared with Asian countries, aren't our costs higher than European countries that have stricter labor laws ?
- turbinerneiter 8y ago
  Granted, I only know Horror-Stories about US-Unions, but it seems that the Europeans are much ... saner. With some hyperbole, I once read this story about how for a simple job someone had to get three different unionized workers, because each one only can do certain work. At our company we are currently building an automated machine to do quality control on a manufacturing line - we had to deliberately design it in a way that doesn't actually reduce the number of people needed for the job. In i.e. Germany this doesn't seem to be so weird. Here, the unions are way more involved in running the company, it's way more about partnership, doing good for the company, then in making sure to keep privileges. Obviously it's also not perfect, there are other problems for sure.
  - yardie 8y ago
    They're saner by the fact that their media speech laws only extend so far. The US, you can call yourself unbiased news, lie on-air, and then if confronted on it just declare it free speech. There, inventing or grossly embellishing stories will get you sued and fined.
    - chii 8y ago
      Free speech only pertains to citizens when the govt is trying to shut it down. News outlets calling themselves unbiased is not invoking free speech at all. Anyone can declare themselves anything - it's called lying.
- ska 8y ago
  In my limited semi-personal experience, (some) European countries have stronger labor laws but a much less adversarial model of union & management collaboration, which can include creative ways of reducing costs (so long as the benefit of same is distributed equitably).
deleted 8y ago
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- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

Funny that the article doesn't once mention unions as a factor that drives up cost. It's almost as if attacks on unions for making public works slow and expensive are disingenuous.

magissima 8y ago

Indeed, the author even wrote another article explicitly refuting the anti-union argument. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/01/08/meme-weeding-unions-and-construction-costs/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/01/08/meme-weeding-u...

thaumasiotes 8y ago
It's an interesting refutation. The author explicitly claims the following: 1. Construction unions in New York, specifically, cause horrific and unjustifiable cost increases. 2. But unions in most of the country aren't in New York, and don't have the same power that NY unions do. 3. The problem is that New York is responsible for a lot of construction, and more sensible areas unthinkingly copy New York's awful, union-driven policies -- those other areas don't need to do things New York's way, but they don't have enough construction experience to know better. The author goes on to say that union-busting politics as they exist in the US won't solve the problem, but obviously believes that unions are responsible for significant parts of it. (And in fact says in so many words that in the absence of particularized US politics, union-busting would be somewhere from neutral to productive.) An immediate implication is that if you're worried about getting things built in New York, you should be trying to break up the unions there.
vonmoltke 8y ago
That post has a few problems: - His line about the DART Orange Line is mixing three different projects (the actual Orange Line, the Trinity River Expressway, and the Dulles (VA) Metro extension) - He is mixing actual project costs with projected costs, as if the comparison is equivalent - The biggest problem, though, is that he is using "Right to Work" to mean "no unions", which is ridiculous. He even doubled down on that in the comments with the asinine statement "But in places with zero union density, like Texas". Those are just the problems I saw from ~10 minutes of research on the subject. Considering that, I don't put a lot of faith in his arguments.
- abduhl 8y ago
  I noted similar issues as well. Particularly for the Silver Line (which he later calls the Orange Line) the guy neglects the fact that this is a government job, despite being in a Right to Work state, and is a federally/publicly funded project and so falls under Davis Bacon Act provisions which are strongly driven by union rates within the region. Especially for Silver Line, union rates in MD/DC have a large impact on the greater DMV area, including the Silver Line.

dmode 8y ago

While union can be a factor compared with Asian countries, aren't our costs higher than European countries that have stricter labor laws ?

turbinerneiter 8y ago
Granted, I only know Horror-Stories about US-Unions, but it seems that the Europeans are much ... saner. With some hyperbole, I once read this story about how for a simple job someone had to get three different unionized workers, because each one only can do certain work. At our company we are currently building an automated machine to do quality control on a manufacturing line - we had to deliberately design it in a way that doesn't actually reduce the number of people needed for the job. In i.e. Germany this doesn't seem to be so weird. Here, the unions are way more involved in running the company, it's way more about partnership, doing good for the company, then in making sure to keep privileges. Obviously it's also not perfect, there are other problems for sure.
- yardie 8y ago
  They're saner by the fact that their media speech laws only extend so far. The US, you can call yourself unbiased news, lie on-air, and then if confronted on it just declare it free speech. There, inventing or grossly embellishing stories will get you sued and fined.
  - chii 8y ago
    Free speech only pertains to citizens when the govt is trying to shut it down. News outlets calling themselves unbiased is not invoking free speech at all. Anyone can declare themselves anything - it's called lying.
ska 8y ago
In my limited semi-personal experience, (some) European countries have stronger labor laws but a much less adversarial model of union & management collaboration, which can include creative ways of reducing costs (so long as the benefit of same is distributed equitably).

deleted 8y ago

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deleted 8y ago
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