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I think this is one of the major impacts. My experience (family in construction) is that day labor / undocumented workers often don't have construction skills,

I think this is one of the major impacts. My experience (family in construction) is that day labor / undocumented workers often don't have construction skills, and so have to be trained on the job, and each crew has mostly new/unskilled folks with a few skilled folks to guide them and keep them on track. Over time, these folks become skilled, and generally end up running crews. It's very commonplace to find the more experience undocumented workers being the ones running small subcontract crews under the table with day labor, because they speak fluent Spanish.

robotresearcher 4y ago
How is the labor cost accounting done in businesses that rely on such labor? How does the risk of government sanctions to the business play out? I'm interested where the blind-eyes are built in.
- tristor 4y ago
  > I'm interested where the blind-eyes are built in. The blind eyes are built in at every single layer. I mean, it only requires a master's license to pull a permit, but master's in trades almost are never hands on, it's all journeymen, apprentices, or day labor. You as a general contractor sub out a master and his crew, and as long as the permitting happens in a timely manner and the inspection passes, you really don't care about anything else. The city doesn't care, because the master is on-site for inspection, so as long as inspection passes, they're not going down the line and asking everyone for ID or anything. There's SO MANY blind eyes, at every layer. It's pretty much a "don't ask, don't tell" policy because if we actually started enforcing the law, nothing would get done. There are significant industries in the US that are almost entirely reliant on day labor / undocumented immigrants, construction is one of them.
huevosabio 4y ago
My experience (in the Bay Area) has been that regardless of country of origin, construction work is insanely inefficient. Lots of administrative bs, lots of made up rules, lack of communication between trades, tons of "not my job" attitude.
- aorloff 4y ago
  Wait until you hear how large software organizations run
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    The value generated by software often scales up with organization size, while the costs and inefficiencies are unlikely to scale at the same rate. Given that, very large successful organizations whose competitive edge is not software may still have terrifyingly low software production efficiencies.
- tristor 4y ago
  The Bay Area is whole other beast. Y'all have turned NIMBYism and obstructionism into an art form. That's not how it works in the rest of the country.
cptskippy 4y ago
Just speaking from my experience with a protracted remodel... > and each crew has mostly new/unskilled folks with a few skilled folks to guide them and keep them on track. In some cases the crew changes from day-to-day so any context a work has on a particular job isn't necessarily carried over form day-to-day. The day laborers are highly dependent on the crew chief for direction. > It's very commonplace to find the more experience undocumented workers being the ones running small subcontract crews under the table with day labor, because they speak fluent Spanish. This too introduces inefficiencies if that crew chief isn't present, late, or leaves the site for any reason. And often the crew chief will instruct works to do the wrong thing, or lacks the knowledge (e.g. electrical) to challenge something.

robotresearcher 4y ago

How is the labor cost accounting done in businesses that rely on such labor? How does the risk of government sanctions to the business play out? I'm interested where the blind-eyes are built in.

tristor 4y ago
> I'm interested where the blind-eyes are built in. The blind eyes are built in at every single layer. I mean, it only requires a master's license to pull a permit, but master's in trades almost are never hands on, it's all journeymen, apprentices, or day labor. You as a general contractor sub out a master and his crew, and as long as the permitting happens in a timely manner and the inspection passes, you really don't care about anything else. The city doesn't care, because the master is on-site for inspection, so as long as inspection passes, they're not going down the line and asking everyone for ID or anything. There's SO MANY blind eyes, at every layer. It's pretty much a "don't ask, don't tell" policy because if we actually started enforcing the law, nothing would get done. There are significant industries in the US that are almost entirely reliant on day labor / undocumented immigrants, construction is one of them.

huevosabio 4y ago

My experience (in the Bay Area) has been that regardless of country of origin, construction work is insanely inefficient. Lots of administrative bs, lots of made up rules, lack of communication between trades, tons of "not my job" attitude.

aorloff 4y ago
Wait until you hear how large software organizations run
- Nevermark 4y ago
  The value generated by software often scales up with organization size, while the costs and inefficiencies are unlikely to scale at the same rate. Given that, very large successful organizations whose competitive edge is not software may still have terrifyingly low software production efficiencies.
tristor 4y ago
The Bay Area is whole other beast. Y'all have turned NIMBYism and obstructionism into an art form. That's not how it works in the rest of the country.

cptskippy 4y ago

Just speaking from my experience with a protracted remodel... > and each crew has mostly new/unskilled folks with a few skilled folks to guide them and keep them on track. In some cases the crew changes from day-to-day so any context a work has on a particular job isn't necessarily carried over form day-to-day. The day laborers are highly dependent on the crew chief for direction. > It's very commonplace to find the more experience undocumented workers being the ones running small subcontract crews under the table with day labor, because they speak fluent Spanish. This too introduces inefficiencies if that crew chief isn't present, late, or leaves the site for any reason. And often the crew chief will instruct works to do the wrong thing, or lacks the knowledge (e.g. electrical) to challenge something.