Witold Karwowski wrote:

>Couple of years ago there was big union showdown on 52nd Street regarding
>the non union construction by...
>
LMAO!

I remember now the project where a certain unmentionable gentleman &
scholar is the contractor doing excellent lobby renovations... we did
the exterior maintenance of one of those buildings, supposed to be a
bread n' butter job and NOT histo presto, and at the time we were amazed
to see the nearby building being done by another company, likewise
non-union and rumored to be amazingly cheaper than us, where they would
upside-down a set of 5-gallon buckets with a standard 2 x 12 (as in
non-OSHA scaffold planking) set atop their rigging platform (a super
wobbly affair to say the least) to get a few extra feet on what we were
not quite sure... but there it was and we saw it... and they were
wearing non-OSHA back breaker safety belts, not full body harnesses and
seen to do all sorts of odd acrobatic maneuvers during the day by our
crew. For all we know they were pissing off the rigs and nobody wanted
to say it. They were a subcontractor to the contractor-of-record and the
contractor won the prize, along I suspect with the design firm that
pumped for them, of the next several buildings for a few more years of
work. What it all comes down to is the owners if they really care about
safety... what they care about is either not getting their ass in a
sling for making a dumb decision, or the managing agent or board
director cares about their cut (plenty of people have gone to jail to
substantiate this phenomena), or they want so cheap that honest & decent
contractors cannot compete to provide quality of work and/or treat their
employees with respect and/or give a fig about safe work practice. It ia
a pimp and whore business. An insurance game... they got insurance to
cover them if an old lady or two dies in her bathroom when the roof
falls in. And so the guy we were dealing with in the management firm had
two young neices on Flight 800.

][<en

--
To terminate puerile preservation prattling among pals and the
uncoffee-ed, or to change your settings, go to:
<http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/bullamanka-pinheads.html>