Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016) • Hacker News Board

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

#241

Post by kelnos » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:00 AM UTC

Bendingo wrote: post #206

arjie wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. The union in…

Assuming hourly rate of: 73.91 (wage floor) + 32.50 (benefits) + 2 (bump) = 108.41 And a 40 hour standard week: 108.41 x 40 = 4336 (weekly rate), 4336 x 52 = 225492 (yearly rate) Assuming double weekend rate, for 8 hours on both sat/sun: 108.41 x 2 = 218.82 (weekend hourly rate), 218,41 x 8 x 2 = 3469.1 (weekend rate, 3469 x 52 = 180394 (yearly rate) Therefore working 8 hours a day, for every day of the week (includi…

80% of half a million is close enough, perhaps.

But, if not, the sentence still works with "give them their $400k a year".

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

#242

Post by jjeaff » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:04 AM UTC

greglindahl wrote: post #197

sargun wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At Equinix, and other datacenters, you can't plug in certain electrical equipment without a Union worker. Often times this can be done significantly cheaper by an independent electrician (or an intern with a little bit of courage).

I've been an Equinix customer (50 racks for 4 years.) I'm OK with Equinix having to plug in my PDUs for me. That wiring is their responsibility. All I care about is how much it costs, and I really don't care about that either because I only pay it once. That makes the cost about zero relative to what I pay for space and power. So, the reason I should care if their worker is union or not is... ?

That's nothing. Try setting up a booth at a union staffed convention center. You can pay for electricity, but there is a separate fee for "plugging in" your device. It must be done by a licensed union electrician.

No, I don't mean some special equipment with some wiring involved.

I mean if you plug in your phone charger with a union electrician, he will still come out, unplug, replug it in, then charge you $65. Gotta round up to the nearest hour of course.

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

#243

Post by kelnos » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:06 AM UTC

mjn wrote: post #87

turc1656 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree corporations get off far too easy. And that is the fault of the government in many cases for not prosecuting them or letting them off with fines far below the profits of illegal activity. "Controlling the supply of labor is very important if you want the wages to be at all decent." - I interpret that sentence very differently. I see it as controlling the labor supply is a great way to prevent the flow of labo…

The basic idea of collective bargaining isn't really illegal when applied to a employers in general, because it's already the norm on that side of the table. A group of businesspeople with mutual economic interest can legally "collude" when they decide what wages to offer employees, how to structure working conditions, how to carry out negotiations, etc., if they agree to form a legal partnership (you don't even need…

The problem isn't "collusion" over wages for the union members. The problem is that the union is a gatekeeper for training for or holding that type of job, period. In this particular case, the law requires (for licensing) that prospective crane operators be apprenticed to a licensed operator before they're eligible for their own license. When all the licensed operators are union members, only union members can get licenses. That allows the union to get around the "closed shop" bits of Taft-Hartley, and allows them to restrict the supply of crane operators to their gain.

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

#244

Post by greglindahl » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:22 AM UTC

jjeaff wrote: post #242

greglindahl wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been an Equinix customer (50 racks for 4 years.) I'm OK with Equinix having to plug in my PDUs for me. That wiring is their responsibility. All I care about is how much it costs, and I really don't care about that either because I only pay it once. That makes the cost about zero relative to what I pay for space and power. So, the reason I should care if their worker is union or not is... ?

That's nothing. Try setting up a booth at a union staffed convention center. You can pay for electricity, but there is a separate fee for "plugging in" your device. It must be done by a licensed union electrician. No, I don't mean some special equipment with some wiring involved. I mean if you plug in your phone charger with a union electrician, he will still come out, unplug, replug it in, then charge you $65. Gotta…

I've also set up booths at several union-staffed convention centers. In all cases I got a power strip that I could plug stuff into myself. Yes, the fees for everything sucked. The fees at non-union convention centers suck a little less, but they still suck. I'm not sure what you point is?

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

#245

Post by wjn0 » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:29 AM UTC

cup wrote: post #237

specialp wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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. If you've ever worked in construction you'd know these "arcane" rules are there because someone died before they existed. Construction is one of the most dang…

I'm curious, are you from the American northeast?

FWIW, I agree with the guy you're replying to. But that's being from Boston, and also hearing about NJ/NY projects in the news.

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

#246

Post by Retra » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:32 AM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #231

Retra wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet we still find some reason to regulate just about everything, because people are pretty creative about finding ways to pass the consequences of their bad decisions onto other people. I don't know real estate developers to be any sort of exception, do you?

Just because "we" find reasons to do this doesn't make it right, or a good idea.

No shit. What is it you think I'm trying to say here?

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

#247

Post by ThomPete » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:50 AM UTC

sfall wrote: post #187

ThomPete wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all unions are bad. Unions serve a purpose in many industries but today a lot of them are antiquated echoes from the past. Uber drivers should have a union IMO, but the ATeachers Union and Manhattan construction industry should have theirs disrupted by something more fitting for the new reality they have too much power. The construction industry literally have people holdning signal flags the entire day. Furtherm…

people are not holding signal flags bc the contractor wants to higher more people but DOT state or federal require it.

I wouldn't be surprised that it's because the unions have been fighting for it.

Other places around the world can figure out to slow traffic down without having flaggers.

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

#248

Post by btschaegg » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 4:53 AM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #43

fiter wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Kiiiinnnnda. People make bad decisions, and the only architecture that matters is the one that lets you change. It's like the dig-once fiber policy for roadways, and is all part of the "don't build to peak value" idea; it's also like a usual problem with user interface design: if you only ever built user tools to do what you imagined, users (or later owners / tenants) are limited to your imagination. I go to a gym in…

I can actually see this effect in my flat. I live in a fairly old building; it's been renovated and I really like it, but the location of the power plugs is the same as when it was constructed (except for one room in my flat). This means each socket is located at the entry of the respective room - the result being that I have extension cords all over the place. I especially find this interesting since this means the pattern of power consumption by "normal people" must have shifted drastically in the last 60-100 years.

On another note, the obvious parallels to software engineering tasks seem very interesting. This shows that ideas like YAGNI very much depend on a cost-benefit-calculation that's very dependend on variables like scale and the anticipated cost of changes.

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

#249

Post by btschaegg » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:02 AM UTC

marcosdumay wrote: post #88

djrogers wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kiiiinnnnda. People make bad decisions You can't outlaw bad decisions - but it seems that some people will never get tired of trying...

Construction codes are all about outlawing bad decisions. Of course, those are "bad" decisions that save a few penny from the builders, and stay hidden until they surprise the building owner with a huge unpredictable cost. No water lines to urinals fits that descriptions nicely.

> Of course, those are "bad" decisions that save a few penny from the builders, and stay hidden until they surprise the building owner with a huge unpredictable cost.

Another case in point: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0UG0H720160102

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

#250

Post by Dylan16807 » Tue, Mar 28, 2017, 5:04 AM UTC

tombone12 wrote: post #135

Dylan16807 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Criticizing is not discarding. I will happily criticize both unions and corporations, and I don't think we should get rid of either concept.

No parent comment criticizing unions does it without the implication that they shouldn't exist. This is most easily seen by the total absence of any mention of a specific union, thus direction the objections towards the concept itself rather than any specific version of it.

All unions, as a general concept, tend toward corruption. Just like corporations do. The concept itself is flawed. But flawed does not mean it shouldn't exist.