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Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

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Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#101

Post by memmcgee »

gipp wrote: post #64
Houshalter wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Europe and Korea still manage to build subways 10-20x cheaper than New York. As far as I know they don't have tons more worker deaths. With all our modern technology, we should be able to achieve what our ancestors did. Even with our higher standards for safety.

It is far from 10-20x difference. And many or most of those nations have stronger worker protections than the US, calling into question the idea that labor law is really the main driving force there. It's probably more like propertyholder protectionism (i.e. NIMBYism) dominating local politics. https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-04-08/why-u-s-i... http://www.realclearpolicy.com/blog/2015/03/31/high_costs_ma…

Those nations also have stronger social safety nets, including health and retirement benefits provided nationally rather than by the employer. Your first article mentions that operating costs per ride in the NYC metro are $4.11, compared to $2.61 in London. It also estimates though that $1 of that is health and retirement benefits.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#102

Post by unethical_ban »

CPLX wrote: post #93
Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the unions. On my way to work, I pass by a giant inflatable rat inflated by a gas motor that's hauled around by a truck. It's rather annoying when its tail gets loose and covers the sidewalk, as can happen on windy days when it's not tied down appropriately. It's probably 10 or 12 feet tall, at least, and the tail is maybe 12 feet long or longer. (3 feet is about one meter for those in metric land). It's parked…

Though it's possible that you're correct on this specific issue, you've offered absolutely no support for your argument. Consider the possibility that the strong streak of instinctive union bashing that you see in typical professional class culture in the U.S. is very much the creation of decades of aggressive PR effort by those who consider unions threatening.

Consider that unions are great in theory and in many circumstances have proven themselves corrupt to the core in practice.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#103

Post by DalaiObama »

Zach_the_Lizard wrote: post #77
thekevan wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but remember this is New York City. In the original article, when the crane was first used on jobs and word got around about it being less expensive and required fewer operator man hours, his job sites were picketed by unions. There were anonymous calls to 311 reporting violations but when the inspectors got there, they didn't find anything wrong. In my mind, I'm skeptical and it could have been the cranes or i…

It's the unions. On my way to work, I pass by a giant inflatable rat inflated by a gas motor that's hauled around by a truck. It's rather annoying when its tail gets loose and covers the sidewalk, as can happen on windy days when it's not tied down appropriately. It's probably 10 or 12 feet tall, at least, and the tail is maybe 12 feet long or longer. (3 feet is about one meter for those in metric land). It's parked…

It's pretty fantastic in these hyper sensitive times that unions get away with calling poor working people rats!

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#104

Post by paulmd »

fiter wrote: post #34
VLM wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

waterless ones are patented and without a water line you'd be locked in to higher priced products and/or have to spend a lot of extra money to run a new water line after the walls go up. Generally the situation with waterless ones is people endlessly social signal their green superiority about them, then the incredible stench makes them install real urinals. Even if only 5% or so install real urinals the net cost is…

I think it's very important to be able to let people make these decisions. It's inefficient to add a water line if it's never going to be used. You might believe I'm going to use it, but I might know I'm not going to use it. Maybe you're right, but I am the one paying the bill to tear off finishings to run water lines in the walls.

We do this in lots of places. For example, it's against building code in most places to build a house without power grid feeds, running water, or septic/sewer access. Sometimes there are exceptions for "tiny houses" but other times not.

You yourself might want to go totally off the grid and/or rustic, but the reality is that you are likely not going to be the last person who ever lives in that house. Maybe you don't pay your taxes and the township ends up owning a lien on your house. They don't want to have to spend fifty grand installing electricity or running water before they can sell the house.

Depending on how big the technical deficit is here, it may not even be cost effective to retrofit after the fact (after all it still needs to meet code). And knocking down a house because the previous owner was a weirdo is terribly wasteful.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#105

Post by bobwaycott »

cperciva wrote: post #11
tbirrell wrote: post #9

tl;dr - It's like a crawler (mobile with a boom, street level crane) but you put it on top of something already there. Since its on top of something, it's not a "mobile" crane and couldn't get certified as one, however, it also didn't fit into the tower crane (tall, lifts things) certification. So it got stuck in between two classifications and as a result made it too hard for construction companies to bother includi…

It could, and did, get approved as a mobile crane. Then it was unapproved, thanks to political pressure.

There's no evidence of political pressure provided. There's an awful lot of unsubstantiated suggesting.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#106

Post by imgabe »

ahoy wrote: post #49
jakelarkin wrote: post #7

This is sort of like how when the waterless urinal was first commercialized, the plumbers union blocked it from getting approved in the general building code. Eventually a compromised was reached that involves requiring a plumber to draw an water line (unutilized) to every water-less install. Unions for skilled, high-pay jobs in highly regulated industries really extract a lot of questionable value from society.

Union acts in it's member's interests: "Terrible, we shouldn't allow this". Corporation acts in it's own interests: "Well you can't blame them for that".

There are plenty of people saying the former when corporations act in their own interests.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#107

Post by arjie »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #57
turc1656 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is this an absurd generalization? This type of crap happens all the time. And people should absolutely talk about this stuff constantly because this kind of stuff shows the true colors of the union(s) and what they really stand for. And people need to be constantly reminded of that. All of these unions that center around apprenticeship programs or requiring special training that is near-impossible to get without…

Of course! Unions are a way to balance the scales against corporations. Controlling the supply of labor is very important if you want the wages to be at all decent. But the parent is right that anything questionable done by unions is labored over and repeated again and again and again and again while corporations (for the most part) don't face the same scrutiny.

Of course, and I wonder how equitable this control will be. Will it let the guy with the skill do it or will it be the friend of the union president?

Able-bodied men and women don't have jobs in America and you want a 'decent' wage floor of 150k for the chosen ones. Trade unions, the supposed bulwark of the left. Worker's rights, etc.

I fully expect people to support all this, have the unions endorse the Democrats, and then have discussions at afternoon tea about how everyone else just considers themselves "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" and votes against their own interest.

They want the jobs, man. And rightfully so. And when you stand there with your $150k-wage-floor job and they have to subsist on the dole because you decided to 'control the supply of labour', you shouldn't be surprised when they don't like you.

Unions and union workers are acting exactly as they're expected to under the Stolper-Samuelson Theorem. And everyone else is acting exactly as they are expected to as well. So I'm not surprised they're acting that way, but the Mafia act as expected to, and I'm damned if I'll back either of these.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#108

Post by Dylan16807 »

kafkaesq wrote: post #42
jakelarkin wrote: post #7

This is sort of like how when the waterless urinal was first commercialized, the plumbers union blocked it from getting approved in the general building code. Eventually a compromised was reached that involves requiring a plumber to draw an water line (unutilized) to every water-less install. Unions for skilled, high-pay jobs in highly regulated industries really extract a lot of questionable value from society.

Except that there's no direct evidence of union shenanigans, in this case. Yes, conceivably the DOB could be in backroom cahoots with Local 14-14B, and nixing the crane on stated grounds of structural design concerns -- whilst in reality having other motives. And not only "conceivably"; stuff like this happens in NYC all the time. But we'd still need to see some actual evidence of such collusion, please; not just spe…

Who said anything about backroom cahoots? They're openly protesting.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#109

Post by bobwaycott »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #26
tbirrell wrote: post #9

tl;dr - It's like a crawler (mobile with a boom, street level crane) but you put it on top of something already there. Since its on top of something, it's not a "mobile" crane and couldn't get certified as one, however, it also didn't fit into the tower crane (tall, lifts things) certification. So it got stuck in between two classifications and as a result made it too hard for construction companies to bother includi…

Did we read the same article? You excluded what the current crane operator union was doing to prevent this thing from being used which seemed like the meat of the article to me.

There's no evidence of the union activity to prevent this crane from being used. There's an awful lot of unsubstantiated leading the reader to conclude this. There is a very strong anti-union bias throughout the article, with zero support for the allegations and finger-pointing. But it's well done, because you're really blaming the union by the end, even though there's no proof.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#110

Post by Frondo »

unethical_ban wrote: post #102
CPLX wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it's possible that you're correct on this specific issue, you've offered absolutely no support for your argument. Consider the possibility that the strong streak of instinctive union bashing that you see in typical professional class culture in the U.S. is very much the creation of decades of aggressive PR effort by those who consider unions threatening.

Consider that unions are great in theory and in many circumstances have proven themselves corrupt to the core in practice.

I mentally swapped "corporations" out for "unions" in your sentence and it reads just as well.

I consider it a credit to the anti-union propagandists that we're all so quick to discard one of the very few tools we laborers have to better our lot in life.

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