Witold Karwowski wrote:

>Ken wrote:
>
>
>>where the UNION crew was supposed to be pinning back the terra cotta.
>>
>>
>this is not exactly the essence of the union dispute - to be fair I know a lot of non union contractors who will be delighted to use this very idea in their practice should they be able to figure it out only. What you are saying is that being union does not guarantee honest job and my point is being non union doesn't either.
>
>
Witold,

Ha! You are correct in the distinction that union or non-union will
cheat, or not. I agree.

I think though that when you are faced with a client, such as a
hospital, that says that they will not go non-union because they want
the assurance of a quality job from the union workforce that there is a
marketing perspective that is skewed, at least by institutions, towards
using a union workforce -- it also has to go to their desire to CYA (if
they go union they made the choice of least resistance, and if the work
is screwed up it is not their fault). It was not the contractor, though,
that figured out to cheat on not pinning, it was the worker... the
contractor paid for the mannequin workforce, in full and including
benefits. I'm not so certain that any contractor, non-union or union,
wants to pay for a no-show workforce. I do contend that the union can be
much more organized and better at cheating and greed, and much more apt
to be infiltrated by organized crime. It is unfortunate and a lousy
situation. I'd also bet that most non-union contractors would catch on
fairly quickly to cheating as a union workforce is predisposed to look
out for each other against the "boss". Of course, all workforce/employer
relationships have an up and a down side regardless if they are union or
non-union.

Then there is the situation of prevailing rates being based primarily on
union wages, and not balanced to include wages of a representative
population of the non-union workforce. As taxpayers we get to pay the
higher rates... yet in the black market all of the private property
owners are going to a workforce as cheap as they can get -- often not
legal. And then there is the social polarization in which unions go
around saying very negative things about non-union workers... it reminds
me of when the AIA started the architects went around saying very
negative things about builders... watch out the mason builder that
cheats on cement and their building falls down!

I'm not against the union. My grandfather the master finish carpenter
was union and proud of it and brought us all up respecting honest work
for honest wages. My mother was in the union as a telephone operator and
fairly active at it. I'm all in favor of unionization when it works. I
also like OSHA, to be honest. It was not until I came to NYC that I met
bucket sitters that I began to see problems with the unions. I was
brought up to believe that people should do good quality work with pride
and honesty.

][<en

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