Edison Coatings wrote:
>
> why shouldn't contractors have to justify
> their labor being worth more than $2 an hour.
>
Mike,

Oh, I get that... now. My experience of the contractors that I know in 
histo presto is that they tend to be really embarrassed to charge what 
they should charge for their time, experience, quality of craft and 
knowledge. I know there are other 'contractors' that give us all a bad 
name. That said, the impression I have is that it is the very same 
contractors who would have the conscience to use the best or most 
appropriate materials that seem to be the ones who do find themselves 
having to justify their labor being more than $2 per hour. So in turn 
what I see is a kind of viscous cycle that begins with the customers 
that if they want to imagine traditional trades as a commodity then it 
is just as much of a pressure to focus on niggling over the cost of 
materials. In the past in attempts to bring together trades with design 
professionals and materials suppliers a fairly astute and in-your-face 
kind of obvious comment was made by one individual that one needs to 
include the property owners and stewards in the dialog. If folks who 
have the stewardship of the properties and the hands on the money want 
to feed to the bottom what can we do about that?

][<en

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