Unions have a purpose. Suppressing innovation and competition to protect their gravy train monopoly should not be one of them.
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Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
251–260 of 312 posts
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#252Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Next time carry it up one flight of stairs and put it in the lift out of sight of the doorman.
Or ask the doorman when he's taking a break and if he'd like you to celebrate his birthday that just happens to be today! with a nice gift.
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#253How 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…
Any clue as to what they do with the hole on each floor after they lift the crane through it?
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#254"In April 2014, City Councilman Ben Kallos, who received $2,500 over two elections from Local 14, introduced new legislation to prohibit climber cranes like the Skypicker from being classified as mobile cranes. The rule would treat the Skypicker like a tower crane, requiring it to carry more insurance and have a Class A operator." Wow. So, for the price of a laptop I could influence NYC politics and have a councilman…
People pay too much attention to the money. He wasn't "bought" with the $2500, he was "bought" with the guaranteed votes from union members for supporting it.
The monetary incentive aside - on principle, it's a good thing that a group of people can arrange with a politician to specify the policy they want to see and then vote for that politician to enact it, right?
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#255Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose I didn't make it explicit, but my point is that these regulations can be costly and/or stifling for a future benefit that may never come. Costly in the original example would be that waterless urinals are installed for the life of the building. Stifling in your example would be because much land will never be used because it's infeasible to bring power, water, and septic. Someone could have a home, but noth…
> these regulations can be costly and/or stifling for a future benefit that may never come. You could say the same thing about much of the building code. A lot of code is there to ensure that the floor doesn't collapse if you fill the tub up with water, have a room full of people jumping up and down, or buy a piano. There's more on ensuring the roof doesn't collapse if there's lot of snow on it, and making sure the h…
I think it's important to consider the difference between "possible benefit" and "avoiding injury/death".
When it comes to safety--because we understandably put such a large value on human life--small risks are something we consider.
I believe all of your examples fall into the safety category. Even worse about your examples is that the situations are unsafe and misleading. I think our regulations surrounding the safety issues that you listed are reasonable.
(Additionally, building codes do consider expected usage and alters allowances. No one expects a piano in an attic and the floor load per square foot requirements reflect that.)
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#256Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suppose I didn't make it explicit, but my point is that these regulations can be costly and/or stifling for a future benefit that may never come. Costly in the original example would be that waterless urinals are installed for the life of the building. Stifling in your example would be because much land will never be used because it's infeasible to bring power, water, and septic. Someone could have a home, but noth…
There aren't that many building regulations in the middle of the countryside. Building busted stuff in the middle of NYC hurts everyone, because there's limited space. Visionaries can build where other people don't want to be, or convince the people around them that what they want to do is a good idea.
You'd be surprised at the prevalence of regulations! ("You have one flush toilet. U.S. regulations require every legally habitable dwelling to have at least one flush toilet connected to an approved sewer or septic system." -- So a composting-toilet-only house seems to be illegal everywhere in the US.)
Someone could buy an incredibly valuable vacant lot and fence it and never use it. As far as I know, that's not illegal but would cause the same problem you've pointed out. I don't think the utility hookup regulations are based on such "waste of space" reasoning.
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#257Earlier 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…
The mobs are not affiliated with New York unions anymore. Yes--for a time it was a big embarrassment. There are some arcane rules. The nepotism in getting into these unions has been greatly reduced. (This guys crane looks like it needs more development time. On any big job site, you get to know your Crance Operator. They are lifting huge loads right over you heads. They take their jobs seriously. If this guys crane i…
I think we all agree that unions are good for the people in them, but how do workers who aren't lucky enough to be in a union feel about being shut out of those jobs?
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#258Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#259Earlier 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…
The same goes for a Hollywood movie set. I worked on a film in the late 1990s as the film runner and and God forbid that I went into the truck to get an extension cord (I wasn't a "qualified" gaffer.) "Hey can you grab me a [light] gel from that box right next to your foot?" "No sorry, I am part of Camera, I can't touch that, the gaffers have to do that."
And this set was in Texas..
I got paid $200 per day to literally sit on set, take the film canister from the loader, walk it out to the gate (this set was in rural Texas on a ranch,) hand it to a driver for him to take it to the airport, grab the dailies from him and walk that back to the director's trailer.
Best two months of my life (got to meet Spielberg on set and got to work with an Oscar nominated cinematographer.)
Still my point is that union rules add significant costs and generally border on absurd.
Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)
#260Earlier 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…
"Competition Is for Losers".
"If you want to create and capture lasting value, look to build a monopoly, writes Peter Thiel"
But when unions do it, that's bad.
Try to convince someone to intervene in abuse of monopoly by Microsoft, and you'll hear arguments that any kind of intervention would be worse that just leaving them to do what they will. Some more efficient competitor will take care of the problem for you eventually.
But when unions do it, that's bad.