Monday, October 10, 2011

BloggeRhythms 10/10/2011

Scanning the news this morning, there are all kinds of TV shots and stories about the anti-everything marches, sit-ins and sleep-ins that began in New York and are now erupting in several other cities. And while most of the folks who've shown up don't really have an issue, but have nothing better to do than follow the crowd, the unions have taken the opportunity to join in.

Many of the unions have sent their own members because, as I've mentioned before, few of them are really needed by the businesses forced to hire them so they aren't missed on the job, and others are paid gang-bangers union leaders have used for years to threaten, muscle and scare those who try to get in their way. But regardless of who the union marchers are, they're playing the same old tune we've all heard for years; that no matter how much they rip employers off for now, they're demanding more.

Now, while all this union marching's going on, I came across an article on Fox on the Web by Claudia Cowan titled: San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Controversially Made in China which talks about how and why the decision was made to use foreign suppliers to build the structure.

According to California Department of Transportation spokesman Bart Ney,"China was immensely helpful to getting this project built. They were able to turn the steel around and work directly with our own inspectors to make sure we met the specifications of what this bridge required."

Several thousand Chinese workers spent five years fabricating the steel used to construct the roadbeds, cable strands, and landmark tower for the single anchor suspension bridge set to open in 2013. Huge deck segments were shipped overseas from Shanghai, because "We're trying to get this bridge completed by 2013. These segments that are larger steel boxes were fabricated in Shanghai because they had the ability to produce them and get them out here on site," says Ney.

Now, naturally, local politicians and business leaders are going bazookas because the project, a public work no less, was farmed out to foreign suppliers. Not only that, they say, the trickle-down effect was lost too. Because according to Roger Ferch with the National Steel Bridge Alliance, "I saw one estimate of the fabrication man hours, the labor to construct this bridge in the fabrication shop of more than a million man hours. That's a million man hours of work that should have been done in the US." And not only that: "Each job has a multiplier effect because not only do you lose the fabrication jobs, you lose those people paying taxes, those people buying groceries, those people buying clothing, and the list goes on."

So, all in all it sounds like giving this job to foreign providers is a truly horrible thing, except for some comments made by California transportation officials who argue they saved $400 million by turning to China, in large part because they didn't have to pay American union wages and benefits. And with the clock ticking, they say more was at stake than money because China, which has dominated bridge building for years, has helped produce a "structural marvel" that will be immediately usable after a major earthquake.

I mention all this only because, if you listen to unionistas they're always crying about how workers are abused and how unfair the system is against them. But, as a practical matter, if you look beyond all their noise and at their actual production versus costs you find that not only do they rip off anyone who employs them cost-wise, they also do lousy work.

That's it for today folks.

Adios

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