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

crainsnewyork.com

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

#211

Post by [deleted] »

jaredhansen wrote: post #160
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…

Here's a fun story about union influence in NYC (with a little twist I hope you'll indulge[1]): In 2005, I moved into a 19th-floor apartment in lower Manhattan. My girlfriend and I spent about 12 hours at IKEA getting everything needed to furnish the place. By the time we finished taking (2!) taxies back from Jersey with all my stuff, it was about midnight on a Friday night. It took another hour or so to schlep every…

[deleted]

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

#212

Post by specialp »

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.

I live in NY and have lived here my entire life. I am very pro union but not pro NYC construction unions. If you have ever been on a job site, there are arcane rules that pad their pockets. Want to plug in a computer in a finished room? Sorry you are going to need an electrician for that. If you do it anyway they will bill you for the electrician coming over anyway.

Need to get in the building? Well the elevator operator that gets paid $40 hr is off for an hour for lunch. He sits on a cooler and eats and drinks all day and occasionally there is an elevator operator apprentice with him. These are elevators that are not construction elevators, but ones that work just fine automatically once the construction guys are out.

The teamster guys sit at the loading dock on lawn chairs also getting paid huge rates for doing absolutely nothing. They will not help you unload anything. They sit there hanging out.

Sounds like a racket? Well it is. And for a really long time it was a racket with the Mafia enforcing using union labor. If you didn't go union they would hurt you or somehow sabotage you, and conversely the union would walk off the job if you didn't take care of the Mafia.

Now the modern racket is with very low level politicians and regulatory boards. The only way you get in these unions too is by knowing someone.

These people make a bad name for unions, and drive costs way up for anything in NYC area.

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

#213

Post by battlebot »

tmnvix wrote: post #63

They do a really good job of painting the union as the culprit here without any evidence whatsoever. The first comment on the article suggests a competing crane company was responsible. I think that is just as likely. Anyhow, as others in this thread have pointed out, the skycranes are back in business.

No, unions are basically filled with assholes. Growing up, my dad was in the Boilermakers. I know firsthand what a bunch of drunken, miserable, violent, and wholly ignorant people they are. My dad made the mistake of crossing them over their crappy nepotism and broken ethics and so we ended up having death threats called in and idiots in a van driving by our house with guns sticking out the windows. Know what the cops did? Jack and shit. Know what the FBI did? Nothing. Zero.

Also, NYC is a den of misery for most of those who inhabit it and a good number of those miserable SOBs belong to unions. Honestly, if the whole place got taken out by an asteroid, we'd be better off.

Unions can fck right off. Miserable communist cnts.

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

#214

Post by mcguire »

Shivetya wrote: post #97
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…

this is not confined to NYC or cities. My cousins have run a successful commercial roofing business in a Mid Western state for decades. It is common that on any public building they work on to have an OSHA inspector come out on day if not each day, to have a local sheriff be called, and even once INS. All because this family owned business is non union and has always been. the sad part, this is a business which has n…

Seems like someone could do the same thing to the union jobs.

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

#215

Post by [deleted] »

Shivetya wrote: post #97
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…

this is not confined to NYC or cities. My cousins have run a successful commercial roofing business in a Mid Western state for decades. It is common that on any public building they work on to have an OSHA inspector come out on day if not each day, to have a local sheriff be called, and even once INS. All because this family owned business is non union and has always been. the sad part, this is a business which has n…

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by battlebot »

specialp wrote: post #212
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.

I live in NY and have lived here my entire life. I am very pro union but not pro NYC construction unions. If you have ever been on a job site, there are arcane rules that pad their pockets. Want to plug in a computer in a finished room? Sorry you are going to need an electrician for that. If you do it anyway they will bill you for the electrician coming over anyway. Need to get in the building? Well the elevator oper…

They should all be shot, hung from their toes, and left to rot in the sun so that nobody else get any ideas, just like they used to do to buccaneers.

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

#217

Post by schoen »

djrogers wrote: post #94
zyztem wrote: post #10

How operation of this machine is different from pretty standard small derrick cranes? Like Liebherr DR? Or even spider cranes (Maeda & others)?

The Liebherr you reference is a dismantling crane, so obvious difference in usage there, and spiders/mini crawler are mobile cranes. The Skypicker is bolted to the floor of the building, and when the next level is ready to go in, it hauls itself up to the height of the next floor through a hole, which is then finished around the crane, which is once again bolted to the floor. The last 30 seconds of the video on this…

I watched that video on that page earlier, but now that I saw your description, I'm wondering how they get it down again at the end!

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

#218

Post by [deleted] »

gingerbread-man wrote: post #76
atom-morgan wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when people advocate for programmers unionizing, I don't see why we'd be any different. There'd be people employed doing X, a programmer would make something to automate X, and "our" union would be trying to save their job.

Just throwing in another reason why programmer unions don't make a lot of sense: licensing. It makes sense to license electricians, crane operators, doctors, lawyers, and many other professions who do safety-critical work. Only a very small minority of programmers work on software that could actually hurt someone (at Boeing, Toyota, etc...). There's no reason to create a legal barrier to entry for programming.

[deleted]

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

#219

Post by floatrock »

gech wrote: post #66
xienze wrote: post #40

> 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. And they don…

It'd should be a undocumented person getting paid 6.50 an hour. Looks ripe for some disruption eh? Send in the VC money and sociopaths! Whatever the market will bear!

So in other words, absolute power of any kind corrupts.

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

#220

Post by [deleted] »

notgood wrote: post #146
manicdee wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

s/unions/humans/g A few unions engage in poor practices and you are happy to tar them all with the same brush. The problem is not the unions.

Saying "the problem is not the unions" is as wide-brush as saying they are the problem; unions have some good causes but the core of their existence is to keep employees employed, sometimes that means important jobs that should exist and sometimes its a cancer that stops a business from profiting or stopping the creation of new ones or the advance of technology (think taxi drivers vs self-driving cars)

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