I am a construction super working on LI and the 5 boros. All the jobs I do are big dollar and strictly union. This is a diary about how the trade unions are hurting themselves.
I just finished a job in Westchester County. The job was big enough dollar wise that we had to put a teamster shopstewart on. His job is to monitor the trucks coming to the site and pay a teamster for the day if one of them isn't driven by a teamster. If someone gets paid (by my company) they are to report to the jobsite so I can take their paperwork, I9, W4 etc, so they can get paid. Twice I had men on the job who were physicly unable to do the job if they were called on to do it. Another one had a suspended drivers license. All paid $35 an hour plus about $20 in benefits for 8 hours to cover a truck that was there for maybe an hour. The shoppie got paid over $70 K for 8 months to sit in his car and for the most part he wasn't around. Cost of doing business.
This being a big job there was also a mastermac. He is an operating engineer that is an enforcer. Like when the ironworkers came to the job they had to hire an operating engineer to run their welder. That entails starting it in the morning shutting it off and turning it back on at lunchtime and shutting it off at the end of the day. This at about $80 an hour.
This morning on LI it was pouring rain. Can't do concrete in the rain but both shopstewerts showed up so they can claim 4 hours show up pay. Believe me I love trade unions. I have worked both sides of the fence and will take union work any day. The workers are trained better I was a union carpenter at one time my son is a union ironworker so I get it. But if the unions don't stop with some of the BS that goes on adding to the price of construction more customers, because they are the ones spending the money, will go nonunion. My customer had to pay the teamster and the men he brought to the site. That went on his tab.
These are just a few things, I could go on but there is no reason to look like I'm bashing the unions I'm just trying to get a point across without belaboring it.