http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3363311Oh my.
The Baltimorean landlord:
Husb2Sparkly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-30-08 10:07 AM
Original message
VERY interesting (non sensational) aspect of that crane collapse in NYC
Some guy was just on the air talking about the larger issue in the construction trades - a lack of labor. I'm not sure who he was since I wasn't really paying attention until he said what he said about the labor shortage.
It is his view that the trades are lacking young people. The average age in the trades in NYC (at least) is 47 years old. The average age of supervisors is older. Further, he said, there is an overall labor shortage that has gotten to a near critical level in the last few years.
My own head went right to 'illegal immigrants' as I listened to him.
I'm not nearly as familiar with the NYC trades as I am with those in the DC/Baltimore area. Down here there are many young people in the trades, and many of them (far, far more than in the population in general) are Hispanic. NYC is a union town. DC is not. Baltimore is so-so.
I'm wondering if the labor shortage the guy was talking about is an unintended consequence of the widespread toxic atmosphere around the country's general acceptance of short statured brown skinned people. That could mean official bias against them or it could mean personal and union antipathy toward them.
I'm not accusing anyone of anything ...... but it sure does me cause to think about it.
franksolich is thinking he wonders if the sparkling husband primitive thinks about the fact that the number of infants murdered in America since 1973, and the number of illegal aliens since 1973, are approximately the same number of millions.
There seems to be some sort of natural law in this, filling a vaccuum.
Anyway.
bbernardini Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-30-08 10:17 AM
Response to Original message
1. I heard Rachael Ray was seen throwing donuts at the crane before the collapse.
ribofunk Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-30-08 10:20 AM
Response to Original message
2. Unions May Do Better Screening for Immigration Status Than Private Employers
if that's what you were getting at. Unions definitely screen out illegals (are green card holders allowed?)
If construction in DC and Baltimore were limited to US citizens, there might be a labor shortage, too.
Husb2Sparkly Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-30-08 10:26 AM
Response to Reply #2
3. Honestly, I'm not sure *what* I'm getting at
Except that when I hear 'labor shortage' my jaw drops. Something is causing that and it isn't for any actual lack of actual people looking for actual jobs.
Tesha Donating Member (1000+ posts) Fri May-30-08 10:37 AM
Response to Reply #3
4. I suspect that "speedups" are at work here.
Doubtless the construction trades are just like everywhere else and management expects fewer and fewer people to do more and more work faster and faster.
Well, sometimes, especially when sophisticated, safety-critical processes are involved, that's not such a bright idea.
tonkatoy57 (436 posts) Fri May-30-08 10:44 AM
Response to Reply #3
5. Perhaps...
My experience with union activities is several decades old. I offer that as a caveat to what I'm going to say.
I found that, in some ways, the union I was familiar with was sometimes as insulated, hierarchical, snobbish, and suspicious of outsiders as any tony, tree shaded country club.
Yes,part of their function was to provide employers with well trained and qualified people, but they sometimes operated in a way that wasn't in their long term interest.
Having said that, perhaps it's a generational and demographic thing and change will come, albeit, slower than is best for the trade unions.
In the city I live in, for instance, police were all Catholic and German, then Catholic and Italian. Now the police department is at least 50% black.
As demographics change power and membership in trade unions will shift.
Dogtown Donating Member (270 posts) Fri May-30-08 10:48 AM
Response to Reply #3
6. Union Vs "Right to Work"
In a union town like NYC, you have to be certified by the union to do certain types of work. This ensures that the guy installing your plumbing knows to make a gradient in the pipes.
In a non-union state like Georgia, I have to rewire my entire house because if I blow a fuse with my toaster in the 1st floor rear, the 2nd store front bedroom light goes out.
The entire house is on 2 meandering circuits.
Unions educate young people in the trades through apprenticeship. You get hired on as an apprentice/laborer and you tote tiles or mix mud for most of the day and learn to cut and lay tile the rest. You're paid a nicely livable wage whilst doing this.
In time you learn enough to be a jorneyman, then a master. Then you make a good living and you don't mix mud.
Republicans hate unions. They want to hire cheap labor, and to keep them in poverty without allowing them to learn or grow.
They want to sell you a house made of sub par materials, erected with shoddy workmanship. That way, they get all the profit from the laborers without having to share anything with the laborers.
If there's a labor shortage in NYC, it's because our class-conscious culture ius telling our youngsters that blue-collar=bad, white collar=good. It's harder to recruit apprentices, unions will *not* break the law by hiring illegals; and we are running out of master craftsman.
St. Ronnie broke the machine and I'm afraid it can't be fixed.
I don't think xenophobia enters in here; their economics has just finally trickled down and it smells like an old man's pee.
Or like the Bostonian Drunkard's.
Anyway, I've always been curious about something here in Nebraska, something to do with campaign literature put out by the Nebraska Republicans, as compared with campaign literature put out by the Nebraska Democrats.
The campaign stuff put out by the Nebraska Republicans always has that little logo on the back, that little oval, stating "printed by union labor," and identifying the specific union.
The campaign stuff put out by the Nebraska Democrats never has that, probably being produced in union-free sweat-shops.
leftofthedial (1000+ posts) Fri May-30-08 10:52 AM
Response to Original message
7. it is a direct consequence of the pervasive anti-union attitude
carefully crafted by the oligarchy over the last generation as a part of their class war
any place with a vestige of unionism suffers
