From the Daily News:Major developers say they won't start building again without significant cuts in their labor costs, with work-rule, benefit and wage savings of 20% or more.
Nonunion contractors are improving their skills and making inroads in the tall Manhattan buildings that have been union-built since the beginning of time.
Meanwhile, union hardhats looking at 20% unemployment or more in their trades have grudgingly accepted work-rule changes and wage freezes on a project-by-project basis - but they're balking at signing onto permanent changes.
Talks have moved along fitfully and recently broke off until after the holidays, but the real battle will come by summer.
Thirty construction unions have contracts that expire by June 30, 2011. When they do, the reverberations could shake New York to its core.
Contractors could reach new deals. Or unions could walk off the job and paralyze construction sites. Or developers could bring nonunion workers onto high-profile midtown jobs and brace themselves for the consequences.
12 comments:
The New York developers are all fantastically rich. What more do they want?
They won't be happy until the middle class is completely gone.
I work in Construction and believe me, the Unions are just as bad and in some cases worse then the business leaders and developers.
It is truly the case of a few bad apples that ruin the bunch.
When I look at union crews from a trade, I may get a crew of 10 workers but I only can count on 3 actually working so I have to make sure that I have a good core three guys for each crew and truthfully, most are WAY over paid.
The greed of the unions will destroy them in the end as non-union labor takes over the city.
There is no reason why elevator operators (thats right, guys that control an elevator) should be able to afford McDonald franchises and laborers (the guys that go around sweeping, etc) should own villa's in Belize.
Trust me it is all pretty bad/ Who loses out? YOU the taxpayer.
..and thats just the tip of the iceberg...
The New York developers are all fantastically rich. What more do they want?
They won't be happy until the middle class is completely gone.
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wait, wait, wait...who said construction workers had to be middle class???
"The modern sociological usage of the term "middle class", however, dates to the 1911 UK Registrar-General's report, in which the statistician T.H.C. Stevenson identified the middle class as that falling between the upper class and the working class. Included as belonging to the middle class are professionals, managers, and senior civil servants."
In other words, people with extensive education, training, and experience resulting in positions of mangerial and decision making roles with signifigant responsiblilty.
Taking a 6 week certificate course in running HVAC or learing the proper way to swing a hammer, simply does not qualify.
Construction jobs, and most any work that often gets union protection, evolved from the lower class roles related to blacksmith, farmer, mill worker, and servant. These are NOT middle class positions.
Elevating these jobs to the middle class pay-rate is not sustainable for any economic model.
While i agree that is a nice thought that everyone should be paid well and be able to own a home and two cars, its not a functional reality, and we see where that line of thinking has lead us to today, and it isn't pretty.
The previous poster tried hard to justify paying below living wages to construction workers but failed.
We got along quite well paying fair wages to the middle class until the Bush tax cuts for the rich changed everything.
It is not the good wages paid to workers that got us to this point, it is the virtually tax free lifestyle we now offer the rich that has done it.
We were running a healthy surplus until Bush eliminated meaningful taxes for the top 3 %
wait till the construction unions have to remove the dependent children from their obama care health insurance coverage. the S.E.I.U ( a leftwing union) announced that they have to do this or go broke.
this is starting in the n.y. area and will cut off tens of thousands of child health policy's.
the members dues were spent by Andy Stern to get obama elected. now their kids are going to be shafted because "OBAMA LIED ".
didn't we hear this statement first at the "obama state of the union"speech?
and the n.y.c.liberal democrats voted, against warnings, for the same sick politicians in 2010.
Be careful what you wish for. Hire some more illegal Chinese and Mexican "electricians" and watch your dreams
GO UP IN SMOKE.
ASSHOLES.
We got along quite well paying fair wages to the middle class until the Bush tax cuts for the rich changed everything.
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There is a difference between 'fair wage' and 'i swing a hammer but own a house in Nassau County and drive a H2"
And the fact is, we weren't paying middle class salaries to these professions for very long. Only since the middle of the century or so. Yes, i know its "TV" but look at the Honeymooners. A seasoned city bus driver and a veteran city sewer worker living in a 1-br apartment, both typical union jobs. Today the same people who do that work will demand a salary to pay for a 2,000 SF home in Great Neck.
As i said earlier, it would be nice if that would be possible, but its not a valid economic model.
local 3 is the biggest problem
local 3 is the biggest problem
local 3 is the biggest problem
local 3 is the biggest problem
local 3 is the biggest problem
For you? Not for me!
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