Do Union Demands Stymie Affordable Housing?
A right-wing think tank has issued a big report that, according to the Sun, says affordable housing construction would be sped up by the use of nonunion labor. The Manhattan Institute is—not surprisingly—arguing that soaring construction costs are slowing development, and a big part of that slowdown is caused by unions that demand a prevailing…
A right-wing think tank has issued a big report that, according to the Sun, says affordable housing construction would be sped up by the use of nonunion labor. The Manhattan Institute is—not surprisingly—arguing that soaring construction costs are slowing development, and a big part of that slowdown is caused by unions that demand a prevailing wage for their workers. Also not surprisingly, not everyone agrees with the report’s findings. “This is a valid area of investigation, but I would not support this recommendation,” says Richard Anderson, the president of the New York Building Congress. And Louis Colletti, president of the Building Trades Employers’ Association, said the recommendation was “absurd” and the use of nonunion labor results in “substandard housing in terms of quality and safety.” Of course, some affordable housing developers in Brooklyn, like the Fifth Avenue Committee, acknowledge that it’s very difficult for them to use union labor because of its higher costs, and the rapidly rising Toren is basically a textbook example of how quickly you can build when you leave unions behind. (The skyscraper has 42 affordable units.) Where do you stand on the issue?
Report Urges Nonunion Labor Use [NY Sun]
Photo by arecee.
10:14 makes the best points so far today.
You can add the failure to educate our children properly to that list Dave. At least unions in the private sector die once they’ve killed their golden goose. Government sector unions are already bankrupting cities and its just the beginning.
“9:45 The only reason we’re not all working six days a week for sub-minimum wage jobs with no healthcare, retirement, etc. benefits is because of unions. Blow me, you conservative “businessman” d-bag.”
The only reason we are not all working six days a week for sub-minimum wage is because of capitalism and free markets, not unions. I am not in a union and do quite well because I am skilled and provide value to my employer. I compete everyday and get ahead because of that, not because I have seniority or political protection. Unions force us to pay what they want through extortion and political lobbying and pay-offs. We pay for it through increased cost of housing, products transportation, government agencies (i.e. Taxes)and virtually everything we buy. If many of these people had to compete based on the merits of their skills and value of their abilities, they would dissappear…as they should.
good thing there are landmarked districts – because you know no affordable housing could be built in those areas with those extra costs.
9:45 I’m intrigued as to how you manage to posit that a force whose numbers and political influence has been in a downward death spiral for 30 years – and this is thanks to Federal hostility to its purposes and goals – is “slowly destroying” the country. That suggests a strengthening, not a weakening, force. It would be more accurate to say that the executive branch, beginning with Reagan, has been “slowly destroying” – obliterating – labor. I hate to go all ad hominem, but why is this misconception – that organized labor is SOMETHING NEW and subversive, that it is a force on the rise rather than on the wane, so common among conservatives? How do your minds manage to annihilate sixty years of U.S. history in which labor unions helped create the middle class? Oh yeah, those sixty years never happened, right?
guest at 9:45,
The blatant mis-statement of facts in your last sentence should give anyone a clue as to to why the opinions you express in your first two paragraphs are worthless.
While using non-union labor will generally result in lower trade bids (and one would thus think, lower construction costs), here are just two of the many reasons there is seldom a cost advantage to going non-union:
1. The vast majority of trade long-time, experienced subcontractors in New York are union. A non-union project is thus largely limited to contractors with non-proven track records and limited experience and the mistakes made by such contractors and the additional supervision required to minimize those mistakes are very costly.
2. The propensity of non-union sub-contractors to underbid a project and fail to have the financial wherewithal to complete the work is staggering. Anyone who closely watched the progress of Boymelgreen’s Smith Street project, where I know for a fact that major trades had non-union contractors replaced as many as three times each, would have gained insight into how general conditions costs, construction loan carrying costs, insurance costs etc. on a job that took nearly 4 years to complete instead of the 18 months it should have taken almost certainly consumed more than the “savings” effected by using non-union contractors.
i work a non-union job, in a non-union industry, and make 250K /year
Damn those lazy, selfish union workers for demanding fair pay and safe working conditions.
It’s gotten so bad I only can only take off 6 weeks this summer to lounge around at my mansion. (Where the servants ARE NOT union members). What is this country coming to?
Unions were good — for coalminers in the 1890s.