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I don't see this discussed at all, but if you're going to use New York City as your exemplar and you're going back to 1910 for data, I don't see how you can avo

I don't see this discussed at all, but if you're going to use New York City as your exemplar and you're going back to 1910 for data, I don't see how you can avoid the fact that both labor unions and the construction companies were under the control of the mafia. They put people on the payroll to do literally nothing, sold materials at way above market value, and the buyer had no choice but to pay because anyone underbidding would get murdered. Unfortunately, the ratchet effect for pricing means getting rid of mafia control doesn't necessarily undo the cost increases they dictated. Also, prevailing wage practices mean labor unions for the same trades that aren't themselves corrupt still end up with the same price inflation, at least regionally.

raincom 6y ago
Here is a book that describes various 'corrupt' schemes: Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry: The Final Report of the New York State Organized Crime Taskforce Here is a pdf the report: https://www.ceic.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/Fichiers_client/centre_documentaire/CEIC-R-3591_01.pdf https://www.ceic.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/Fichiers_client/centre...
kryogen1c 6y ago
michael franzese talks about this alot in various podcasts and interviews. it was true much more recently than 1910. the family isnt what it used to be, but its certainly not gone.
j_walter 6y ago
There are still stupid high costs for stuff and people are still put on the payroll to do nothing. $70/hr for a guy who does nothing but get coffee... https://nypost.com/2018/03/05/union-workers-are-making-42-per-hour-delivering-coffee-suit/ https://nypost.com/2018/03/05/union-workers-are-making-42-pe... There was a great piece done by John Stossel about why a pretty basic public park bathroom cost $2M to build and took years to finish construction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKRuhiMDOjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKRuhiMDOjo
- tylermw 6y ago
  John Stossel really shows his hand in that piece when he uses "wheelchair access" as an example of government spending run amok. Why shouldn't disabled people should be able to access facilities they pay for with their tax dollars? Why is complying with the ADA--a bipartisan law signed by George H.W. Bush--seen as a waste of taxpayer money?
  - j_walter 6y ago
    He certainly does mention that and it doesn't seem clear why, but either way how does something as basic as a restroom cost that much to build? You think there isn't a lot of waste involved and at the tax payers expense?
  - oh_sigh 6y ago
    The ADA might be generally a good idea, but that doesn't mean that everything it makes you do is a good idea. On my street, the city(near Denver) recently added 3 curb cuts for ADA compliance. I don't know how much those curb cuts cost, but they weren't free. Now - no one really walks down my street. There were curb cuts at both ends of the block. Every driveway has a curb cut. But more curb cuts needed to be added because of the ADA, even though there is no clear explanation of how anyone with a movement disability is going to benefit from these new cuts.
    - simfree 6y ago
      Do you ever question why the sidewalk was unused? Without curb cuts, any potential sidewalk user with wheels is impaired with a detour through the street or a cumbersome stop and lift process. Does a parent with their kids in a stroller get discouraged by this? How about those with Rollerblades, non-electric scooters, or any kind of dolly? Curb cuts for cars are often a notable detour for other road users, many have a 1/2 inch lip (unlike sidewalk curb cuts).
      - oh_sigh 6y ago
        You're telling me all the reasons that curb cuts may be a good idea, but not why they are actually a good idea in my neighborhood(not that I blame you since you don't know where I live). Anyways - that is really my point. ADA has good general ideas, but it can be too generalized to be usefully applied to many neighborhoods. > Do you ever question why the sidewalk was unused? No, because it is clear. It is unused because the only reason anyone would walk down it is if they lived in the neighborhood. So people do use it, but the number of unique users is approximately how many people live in the 10 houses on the street. > Without curb cuts There are a ton of curb cuts. Literally every 70' is a curb cut for the entire length of the street before they did their work. Now there are three more curb cuts. > Does a parent with their kids in a stroller get discouraged by this? I'm a parent with a stroller and it has never been a problem. Hasn't been a problem for my wife either who is significantly weaker than me and has a bad back. > How about those with Rollerblades, non-electric scooters, or any kind of dolly? These are also me, and no, no problem. Also me on a skateboard without an issue. And it's not because I'm great at skateboarding, since I literally just started 2 months ago. > Curb cuts for cars are often a notable detour for other road users There's zero lip on any of the 12 curb cuts on the street. I know this because I've ridden my skateboard over them a bunch of times and have never fallen.
spaced-out 6y ago
I'm not sold on labor unions being the primary factor in this, though they may contribute, because construction costs in the US are so much higher than countries like France, which has even stronger labor unions and stricter regulation. I find it hard to believe that US labor unions are able to extract so much more value than their French counterparts. I think a bigger culprit is excessive local control and zoning restrictions, wielded to benefit property owners or to bleed developers and generate revenue for city governments. The shocking part, IMO, is that these costs far outweigh the cost added by notoriously strong French labor unions and EU regulation.
- bluGill 6y ago
  Unions in the US work different from France. In France unions wouldn't attempt to get their people $200/hour that the sandhogs in NYC get. We should bring the high priced unions to a realistic wage. However most union wages are not that far out of line. Also in France the union is more relaxed about letting go of jobs that are automated away. There is no reason a TBM needs twice as many people to operate it in NYC as in France. There is no reason for any trains to have a conductor anymore, and train drivers are something that should be all but dead as well (though France is way behind the automation curve here as well) That said, union labor is only a small part of the problem. Even if all of the most anti-union propaganda is taken as 100% true, union labor is still only a small fraction of the total cost of any build in the US. As such we need to look hard at what is going on in the other parts of construction.
  - MomoXenosaga 6y ago
    Thanks to the EU construction companies in France have access to Eastern European labourers. And they don't do unions.
- steveBK123 6y ago
  From family in the industry, my understanding is it’s not union benefits/wages/etc per se, but more the work rules that haven’t changed with the times driving over staffing, inability to fire bad performers, and overtime issues. There’s a lot of on-the-clock non-work built into the work rules. My relatives in the industry described the typical day as involving on-the-clock time built in for cleanup&changing into/out of work clothes, briefing on tasks for the day, safety briefing (AM and again after lunch for legal reasons), smoke/coffee breaks, etc. The longest stretch of uninterrupted construction is about a 2 hour sprint into the end of the day. On the staffing front, the only lever a project manager has is to give the 2-3 hardworking guys out of 12 a boatload of overtime hours to get the actual work done. This is one reason that on most every job site around the city you see some pretty sick cars. Those 2-3 guys are getting 50% of the work done out of the 12, and getting paid Google engineering money for it. NYT article years back talked about 2nd avenue subway covered examples of work rules. Tunnel boring machine in NY requires 3-4x the staffing of Paris, because thats the contract negotiated in the 70s when it was seen to be reducing jobs.. and no one has revisited it. This is no small figure as we have a handful of these digging tunnels the last few years, at the rate of 50ft/day... for months. Similarly there is a mandatory on-site oiler who basically sits in the break room all day because the machines do not need constant oiling anymore the way they did when the rule was written half a century ago. One example from my relative - on a large NYC project he worked, they couldn’t take deliveries from suppliers on Saturday because it required the job site to be opened. Per union rules this would have required some inane number of staff to be on-site getting overtime rather than just say the guy to open the gate & staff (if any) required to empty the truck. A lot of this is because public sector unions are treated as a voting constituent rather than a vendor by the government, and no politician ever wants to cross them.
mc32 6y ago
Why can’t the feds do for construction corruption what Blumenthal and Giuliani did to organized crime in NYC. The feds know it’s corrupt. Why can’t they go there and say all projects need to come through us and they ensure there is no monkey business going on with the contracts?
- bluGill 6y ago
  What makes you think the feds are any less corrupt?
  - mc32 6y ago
    The idea is that people on the outside are less likely to be locally corrupt. Chinese dynasties did similar with their civil servants and Soviets practiced this in some areas to avoid this coziness that leads to corruption.
    - lstodd 6y ago
      This was done for funneling corruption money away fom local elites to some other non-local elites. The corruption stayed the same - it's a revenue center, why touch it.
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  If I were a developer in NYC and the feds said that, I would sue. constitutionally speaking, they don't have the power to say all building projects need to come through us. Yes, construction contracts and rates are fueled by corruption. That said, I would only be OK with the feds going after the corruption. Not taking over construction. Do investigations. Trap people in stings. Do all the good old FBI tricks. I encourage that, but governmental takeover of all contracting is going too far.
  - bluGill 6y ago
    The feds could say we won't contribute to a subway unless we actually build it. Though as I said elsewhere, that just means in a few years the corrupt switch to how to deal with the feds. Much better for the feds to be an independent anti-corruption unit.
hellbannedguy 6y ago
I have worked construction in San Francisco, and a former General Contractor. There is a cost difference between all union projects, and non-union projects. The costs seem outrageous at first. If I wanted to hire a union local 6 Electican a few years ago the union would charge me $101/hr. for a skilled worker to show up. Yes--it sounds nutty? The answer is bypass the union, and go non-union? When all us said and done, and the project is completed, and the developer gets the bill; the few projects I worked on, the total cost of building was roughly the same? That doesn't take into account what non-union shops cost society either. Very few non-union shops provide health care. If they do, it's usually a lousy plan. Workers get sick, or hurt, and worker's compensation runs out; you have workers looking for government medical care. My point is I'm pretty sure the mob is not affiliated with unions in San Francisco. (I know that was not your point) My main point is when the building is completed, and it's time for the developer to sell the shiny new building; the price you pay is exactly the same. Non-union workers make developers more money. The buyer will not see those savings. You the buyer will not receive a better deal ever. The market determines the price. Now--if you are the developer, it's a no brainer--kind of--you want the building built as cheaply as possible. You hire non-union, provide lousy training, but live in a grand mansion. You spit out a few spoiled kids, and they run the money machine. (Big Bill of Bradley electric was apprentice for 5 years. Learned the trade. Turned around and opened a non-union shop. Made millions. Made so much money he could shoot his son in-law, and somehow get out if a long jail sentence. Making a lot of money is nice?) Many unions now have a no compete clause in their agreement. Unions don't want to pay for your schooling, and have their guys opening up non-union shops. I am pretty sure it's never enforced, or even legal? Wow--I'm just writing too much today. Don't feel that great? I'm finding this opening depressing in a weird way. Sorry about bothering anyone with my issues. I sometimes have no one to talk to.) O.k, I say "kind of" because with a union run job, it's usually done on time, and done well. This crazy rant is basically developers are usually the only one's saving money with non-union help.
- stale2002 6y ago
  > My main point is when the building is completed, and it's time for the developer to sell the shiny new building; the price you pay is exactly the same. It is more complicated than that. The way that supply and demand works, is that if costs go up, then there is less reason to create new supply. And a lower supply of an item, means that prices, for the overall market, will go up. That is how supply and demand works, and housing is no different. > You the buyer will not receive a better deal ever. The market determines the price. The market is determined by supply and demand. This is standard, 101 economic theory. If costs go up, supply go down (or supply increases a smaller amount), and price goes up.
sdsaga12 6y ago
Agreed that New York City is an outlier in a number of ways, but there does appear to be something interesting going on with regard to rising U.S. costs for a variety of things besides just construction (e.g., health care and education). Slate Star Codex did an interesting though definitely inconclusive piece on this in 2017: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...

raincom 6y ago

Here is a book that describes various 'corrupt' schemes: Corruption and Racketeering in the New York City Construction Industry: The Final Report of the New York State Organized Crime Taskforce Here is a pdf the report: https://www.ceic.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/Fichiers_client/centre_documentaire/CEIC-R-3591_01.pdf https://www.ceic.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/Fichiers_client/centre...

kryogen1c 6y ago

michael franzese talks about this alot in various podcasts and interviews. it was true much more recently than 1910. the family isnt what it used to be, but its certainly not gone.

j_walter 6y ago

There are still stupid high costs for stuff and people are still put on the payroll to do nothing. $70/hr for a guy who does nothing but get coffee... https://nypost.com/2018/03/05/union-workers-are-making-42-per-hour-delivering-coffee-suit/ https://nypost.com/2018/03/05/union-workers-are-making-42-pe... There was a great piece done by John Stossel about why a pretty basic public park bathroom cost $2M to build and took years to finish construction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKRuhiMDOjo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKRuhiMDOjo

tylermw 6y ago
John Stossel really shows his hand in that piece when he uses "wheelchair access" as an example of government spending run amok. Why shouldn't disabled people should be able to access facilities they pay for with their tax dollars? Why is complying with the ADA--a bipartisan law signed by George H.W. Bush--seen as a waste of taxpayer money?
- j_walter 6y ago
  He certainly does mention that and it doesn't seem clear why, but either way how does something as basic as a restroom cost that much to build? You think there isn't a lot of waste involved and at the tax payers expense?
- oh_sigh 6y ago
  The ADA might be generally a good idea, but that doesn't mean that everything it makes you do is a good idea. On my street, the city(near Denver) recently added 3 curb cuts for ADA compliance. I don't know how much those curb cuts cost, but they weren't free. Now - no one really walks down my street. There were curb cuts at both ends of the block. Every driveway has a curb cut. But more curb cuts needed to be added because of the ADA, even though there is no clear explanation of how anyone with a movement disability is going to benefit from these new cuts.
  - simfree 6y ago
    Do you ever question why the sidewalk was unused? Without curb cuts, any potential sidewalk user with wheels is impaired with a detour through the street or a cumbersome stop and lift process. Does a parent with their kids in a stroller get discouraged by this? How about those with Rollerblades, non-electric scooters, or any kind of dolly? Curb cuts for cars are often a notable detour for other road users, many have a 1/2 inch lip (unlike sidewalk curb cuts).
    - oh_sigh 6y ago
      You're telling me all the reasons that curb cuts may be a good idea, but not why they are actually a good idea in my neighborhood(not that I blame you since you don't know where I live). Anyways - that is really my point. ADA has good general ideas, but it can be too generalized to be usefully applied to many neighborhoods. > Do you ever question why the sidewalk was unused? No, because it is clear. It is unused because the only reason anyone would walk down it is if they lived in the neighborhood. So people do use it, but the number of unique users is approximately how many people live in the 10 houses on the street. > Without curb cuts There are a ton of curb cuts. Literally every 70' is a curb cut for the entire length of the street before they did their work. Now there are three more curb cuts. > Does a parent with their kids in a stroller get discouraged by this? I'm a parent with a stroller and it has never been a problem. Hasn't been a problem for my wife either who is significantly weaker than me and has a bad back. > How about those with Rollerblades, non-electric scooters, or any kind of dolly? These are also me, and no, no problem. Also me on a skateboard without an issue. And it's not because I'm great at skateboarding, since I literally just started 2 months ago. > Curb cuts for cars are often a notable detour for other road users There's zero lip on any of the 12 curb cuts on the street. I know this because I've ridden my skateboard over them a bunch of times and have never fallen.

spaced-out 6y ago

I'm not sold on labor unions being the primary factor in this, though they may contribute, because construction costs in the US are so much higher than countries like France, which has even stronger labor unions and stricter regulation. I find it hard to believe that US labor unions are able to extract so much more value than their French counterparts. I think a bigger culprit is excessive local control and zoning restrictions, wielded to benefit property owners or to bleed developers and generate revenue for city governments. The shocking part, IMO, is that these costs far outweigh the cost added by notoriously strong French labor unions and EU regulation.

bluGill 6y ago
Unions in the US work different from France. In France unions wouldn't attempt to get their people $200/hour that the sandhogs in NYC get. We should bring the high priced unions to a realistic wage. However most union wages are not that far out of line. Also in France the union is more relaxed about letting go of jobs that are automated away. There is no reason a TBM needs twice as many people to operate it in NYC as in France. There is no reason for any trains to have a conductor anymore, and train drivers are something that should be all but dead as well (though France is way behind the automation curve here as well) That said, union labor is only a small part of the problem. Even if all of the most anti-union propaganda is taken as 100% true, union labor is still only a small fraction of the total cost of any build in the US. As such we need to look hard at what is going on in the other parts of construction.
- MomoXenosaga 6y ago
  Thanks to the EU construction companies in France have access to Eastern European labourers. And they don't do unions.
steveBK123 6y ago
From family in the industry, my understanding is it’s not union benefits/wages/etc per se, but more the work rules that haven’t changed with the times driving over staffing, inability to fire bad performers, and overtime issues. There’s a lot of on-the-clock non-work built into the work rules. My relatives in the industry described the typical day as involving on-the-clock time built in for cleanup&changing into/out of work clothes, briefing on tasks for the day, safety briefing (AM and again after lunch for legal reasons), smoke/coffee breaks, etc. The longest stretch of uninterrupted construction is about a 2 hour sprint into the end of the day. On the staffing front, the only lever a project manager has is to give the 2-3 hardworking guys out of 12 a boatload of overtime hours to get the actual work done. This is one reason that on most every job site around the city you see some pretty sick cars. Those 2-3 guys are getting 50% of the work done out of the 12, and getting paid Google engineering money for it. NYT article years back talked about 2nd avenue subway covered examples of work rules. Tunnel boring machine in NY requires 3-4x the staffing of Paris, because thats the contract negotiated in the 70s when it was seen to be reducing jobs.. and no one has revisited it. This is no small figure as we have a handful of these digging tunnels the last few years, at the rate of 50ft/day... for months. Similarly there is a mandatory on-site oiler who basically sits in the break room all day because the machines do not need constant oiling anymore the way they did when the rule was written half a century ago. One example from my relative - on a large NYC project he worked, they couldn’t take deliveries from suppliers on Saturday because it required the job site to be opened. Per union rules this would have required some inane number of staff to be on-site getting overtime rather than just say the guy to open the gate & staff (if any) required to empty the truck. A lot of this is because public sector unions are treated as a voting constituent rather than a vendor by the government, and no politician ever wants to cross them.

mc32 6y ago

Why can’t the feds do for construction corruption what Blumenthal and Giuliani did to organized crime in NYC. The feds know it’s corrupt. Why can’t they go there and say all projects need to come through us and they ensure there is no monkey business going on with the contracts?

bluGill 6y ago
What makes you think the feds are any less corrupt?
- mc32 6y ago
  The idea is that people on the outside are less likely to be locally corrupt. Chinese dynasties did similar with their civil servants and Soviets practiced this in some areas to avoid this coziness that leads to corruption.
  - lstodd 6y ago
    This was done for funneling corruption money away fom local elites to some other non-local elites. The corruption stayed the same - it's a revenue center, why touch it.
bilbo0s 6y ago
If I were a developer in NYC and the feds said that, I would sue. constitutionally speaking, they don't have the power to say all building projects need to come through us. Yes, construction contracts and rates are fueled by corruption. That said, I would only be OK with the feds going after the corruption. Not taking over construction. Do investigations. Trap people in stings. Do all the good old FBI tricks. I encourage that, but governmental takeover of all contracting is going too far.
- bluGill 6y ago
  The feds could say we won't contribute to a subway unless we actually build it. Though as I said elsewhere, that just means in a few years the corrupt switch to how to deal with the feds. Much better for the feds to be an independent anti-corruption unit.

hellbannedguy 6y ago

I have worked construction in San Francisco, and a former General Contractor. There is a cost difference between all union projects, and non-union projects. The costs seem outrageous at first. If I wanted to hire a union local 6 Electican a few years ago the union would charge me $101/hr. for a skilled worker to show up. Yes--it sounds nutty? The answer is bypass the union, and go non-union? When all us said and done, and the project is completed, and the developer gets the bill; the few projects I worked on, the total cost of building was roughly the same? That doesn't take into account what non-union shops cost society either. Very few non-union shops provide health care. If they do, it's usually a lousy plan. Workers get sick, or hurt, and worker's compensation runs out; you have workers looking for government medical care. My point is I'm pretty sure the mob is not affiliated with unions in San Francisco. (I know that was not your point) My main point is when the building is completed, and it's time for the developer to sell the shiny new building; the price you pay is exactly the same. Non-union workers make developers more money. The buyer will not see those savings. You the buyer will not receive a better deal ever. The market determines the price. Now--if you are the developer, it's a no brainer--kind of--you want the building built as cheaply as possible. You hire non-union, provide lousy training, but live in a grand mansion. You spit out a few spoiled kids, and they run the money machine. (Big Bill of Bradley electric was apprentice for 5 years. Learned the trade. Turned around and opened a non-union shop. Made millions. Made so much money he could shoot his son in-law, and somehow get out if a long jail sentence. Making a lot of money is nice?) Many unions now have a no compete clause in their agreement. Unions don't want to pay for your schooling, and have their guys opening up non-union shops. I am pretty sure it's never enforced, or even legal? Wow--I'm just writing too much today. Don't feel that great? I'm finding this opening depressing in a weird way. Sorry about bothering anyone with my issues. I sometimes have no one to talk to.) O.k, I say "kind of" because with a union run job, it's usually done on time, and done well. This crazy rant is basically developers are usually the only one's saving money with non-union help.

stale2002 6y ago
> My main point is when the building is completed, and it's time for the developer to sell the shiny new building; the price you pay is exactly the same. It is more complicated than that. The way that supply and demand works, is that if costs go up, then there is less reason to create new supply. And a lower supply of an item, means that prices, for the overall market, will go up. That is how supply and demand works, and housing is no different. > You the buyer will not receive a better deal ever. The market determines the price. The market is determined by supply and demand. This is standard, 101 economic theory. If costs go up, supply go down (or supply increases a smaller amount), and price goes up.

sdsaga12 6y ago

Agreed that New York City is an outlier in a number of ways, but there does appear to be something interesting going on with regard to rising U.S. costs for a variety of things besides just construction (e.g., health care and education). Slate Star Codex did an interesting though definitely inconclusive piece on this in 2017: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-disease/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost...