Of Course HSR Work Should Go To People Who Most Need It
The California high speed rail project is not just a transformative piece of transportation infrastructure. It’s also an important economic stimulus, especially in the Central Valley which has still not yet recovered from the Great Recession. The California High Speed Rail Authority has taken laudable steps to pay good wages and include disadvantaged workers in the construction, to ensure that some of the people most in need get direct benefits from the project. In typical fashion, some California Republicans are criticizing those steps:
“There’s another chapter in the high-speed fail saga, and I almost can’t do this one with a straight face,” Assemblyman Brian Jones, R-Santee, said in a recent installment of “Are You Kidding Me?” a video series in which Jones vents political frustrations. “What a social engineering disaster this is going to be, and add to California’s laughingstock reputation.”…
Opposition to the rail authority’s new hiring policy is partly ideological. Jones scoffed last week at “some of the liberals up here in Sacramento” and said that “when you’re building a high-technology system like this … you should be hiring the people that are most qualified, not the most disadvantaged.”
And people wonder why California Republicans are struggling. The point here isn’t to give out a job to just anyone. It’s to find ways to ensure that among the qualified candidates are those who have the most need, including those who never finished high school, who are currently homeless, or who have been convicted of a crime. Rather than treat such people as outcasts, it’s better for a community and for an economy to help them share in the prosperity that the project will create.
Jones’s comments weren’t the only critical ones out there:
Another criticism has nothing to do with the policy itself, but with its inclusion in a broader agreement that even rail officials acknowledge is a form of Project Labor Agreement negotiated with labor organizers.
Under the broader Community Benefits Agreement, non-union subcontractors could work on the project, but only if they agree to wage and working conditions typically afforded union workers.
Again, those are very good things to include on a project, helping protect workers on the job and giving them good wages that will ripple throughout these communities. The Central Valley needs jobs, but they also need good jobs that pay good wages. Jobs that come with cheap wages won’t actually do very much to help stimulate economic recovery there.
CHSRA CEO Jeff Morales put it well:
“We’ve got unemployed, skilled workers in the Central Valley where we’re going to be doing construction,” Morales said. “Let’s do everything we can to try to get those people back to work, train other people to take on the kind of work and generate as many jobs and help make a dent in that unemployment rate in the Valley.”
Amen to that. I’m glad to see the Authority is pursuing this approach and hope they keep at it, even if members of a small fringe political party don’t like it.
And republicans are supposed to be trying to rebrand themselves! Apparently they have not learned anything. They are continuing to turn people off. No surprise at all.
Peter Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 8:49 am
Republicans are not rebranding themselves. They are merely trying to find candidates from different races with the same “ideals” as the current Republicans. Because they appear to think that people are single-issue, i.e. race, voters.
qualified candidates are those who have the most need, including those who never finished high school, who are currently homeless, or who have been convicted of a crime…
Sounds like some of the workers who built the GG and Bay Bridges.
jimsf Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:09 am
+1
VBobier Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:41 am
+1
Nathanael Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:52 pm
+1.
There’s too much “discrimination against the unlucky” in current private hiring practices (like the well-known bias against hiring unemployed or homeless people — uh, seriously, folks?) This is mostly going to counteract that. Also, most criminal convictions are recreational-drug-related these days and should be ignored for hiring purposes (unless you’re also screening out smokers, coffee drinkers, and alcohol drinkers). Further, for manual labor jobs (of which there will be many), a high school diploma is not necessary. “Credentials screening” has run amok in private industry too.
Its great to be all rah-rah about hiring disadvantaged people and in underemployed areas etc, but what is the actual impact of this? For instance, if these programs add 20% to the cost and 5 years to the construction timeline, then I am 100% against them. If the impact is a drop in the bucket, then this is great.
I think people who criticize these programs do so not because they are aholes, but because they fear they will double the cost or time of a project, with a bunch of incompetent nit-wits running the show. At the same time, people who blindly say that we should spend $60B just for the sake of creating jobs also sound like nit-wits. What is the reality here?
Alon Levy Reply:
March 4th, 2013 at 10:54 pm
The impact is mainly PR. Most of the cost of this project is not on-the-ground labor; the cost per job created is too high even at professional wages, let alone skilled worker wages, let alone unskilled worker wages.
BMF from San Diego Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 6:47 pm
Agreed. I did not understand.
swing hanger Reply:
March 4th, 2013 at 11:44 pm
Well hopefully if some members of the local community get to work on the line, perhaps some may be less inclined to throw rocks at the trains when they start running.
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:25 pm
Urban drones will remedy that problem in short order in your anthill Hunger Games futureworld.
BART is already adopting an “86″ law for those riders it deems “problem”
John Burris should get even richer.
BeWise Reply:
March 4th, 2013 at 11:45 pm
Exactly! I think most people would be concerned with cost overruns and construction delays with these ‘disadvantaged’ hiring practices. Given this is the first project of its type in the country, high-speed rail should be built by those who are most qualified and experienced, not most disadvantaged.
Eric Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 2:38 am
The Republicans oppose CAHSR. Do you want the Democrats to oppose it too? Democratic support depends on racial hiring quotas.
Andy M Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 4:40 am
Does it though?
Surely, being the first proper HSR project, not just in California, not just in the US but on the whole hemisphere, shouldn’t they be interested first and foremost in it getting completed and running with a minimum of mismanagement, cost overruns and without artificially creating points of attack for the opponents. Or is it better to sacrifice all that so the mentally instable can get well paid jobs where they can smoke pot while poring concrete. California would be the laughing stock of the world if it all needed to be torn up and done again.
VBobier Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:45 am
Some people who hate Government would cry mismanagement for any and all reasons, hating HSR is one of them…
Eric Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 4:37 am
California is already the laughingstock of the world.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 12:29 pm
Only for American values of “the world,” if any. In literally all other countries I’ve lived in except Canada people think of LA and SF as great, wealthy cities. In Singapore my classmates were surprised when I said I was going to reject Berkeley and go to Columbia instead. And what Canadians think of California is very different from what Americans think of California; basically they look down on it in the way they look down on the rest of the US.
swinh hanger Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:43 am
Well, you need people to dig ditches, put up chain link fences, shift dirt from A to B- they are not going to be pulling out their personal blue prints, dumpy level and GPS, for crissakes- as Alon said, it’s mainly a PR exercise.
Andy M Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:34 am
I hope you’re right.
I once offered a job to a person from a disadvanatged background with a very poor CV, a dismal track record and criminal past. I hired him because I believed in giving people chances and in the interview he came across as incompetent but well meaning and likeable. Furthermore he had a family to look after. It turned out it was a hiring decison I bitterly regretted. From day one, the guy had a lousy attitude to work. He regularly came late and left early. He instantly stopped working when he though no-one was looking. He picked arguments with his work colleagues and made life hell for some of them, including dropping racist comments. Furthermore he had one hell of an attitude about it and wouldn’t take any criticism, however tactfully delivered with silk gloves. We had to let him go.
Jonathan Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 4:54 pm
if so, then … WTF are we doing ,having PB or PTG or Tutor-Saliba anywhere near the project?
BrianR Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:51 pm
is there documented evidence that every project PB has ever been associated with has been a 100% disaster and in every instance everyone would be better off if those projects were never built at all? It’s just a question. Among the engineering community is PB regarded in a similar manner as the culinary community regards McDonald’s?
I don’t think Assemblyman Brian Jones got the memo that Romney lost the election. Like all Republicans maybe he has some opinions about RAPE he can share with us all.
http://votesmart.org/candidate/political-courage-test/70781/brian-jones/#.UTWeAY7IaqM
Being a Republican and all I am sure he has some “enlightened” viewpoints on the subject! His opinions on other issues are not any better informed. I don’t see how anyone could take anything he says seriously.
Alan Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 7:32 am
Hey, *Romney and his wife* didn’t get the memo that Romney lost the election. The way they were whining to Faux Noise last weekend, feeling that their sense of entitlement had been violated, was pathetic.
I’m hardly surprised that some peon state assemblyman, way down the GOP food chain, didn’t get the message. Obviously Jones also missed the email about his side being way, way in the minority in Sacramento…
It seems rather schizophrenic to me, that on the one hand CAHSR is seeking bids from the world’s leading and moist experienced construction companies, while on the other hand hobbling them by telling them they can’t employ the people they want, and thus ultimately that they can’t be optimally effective. Either CAHSR should do everything in-house and then employ who they want and face the consequences, or they should use experienced contractors and then let them do things their way with only the final result being judged. It is these mixed scenarios where the private sector pretends to be responsible but then ends up being the extended arm of the state that are the recipe for disaster as we can see for example in the post-privatisation UK – where the state part of the rail industry seems to spend most of its energy blaming the private companies for incompetence whereas the private companies are pointing back at the state’s micromanagement and continuous moving of goalposts.
I’m all for the state seeking to give the diadvanatged a head start, but not at the cost of putting such vital infrastructure in peril.
joe Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 6:26 pm
Absolutely NOT true. They can hire to a standard. They need to LOOK at local population.
Accept the full story – not half.
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 8:07 pm
What about quotas don’t you understand?
joe Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 8:28 pm
The skilled worker part.
JBaloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 8:44 pm
+1
Jonathan Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 7:48 pm
What, you mean like Skanska, Parsons, and Tutor? Your irony whooshed right over my head.
From a Wisconsin perspective, an overpriced social engineered train system that probably gets some of our “free” federal tax dollars … seems “far out, man”.
Jones probably does not know that delivery job opportunities to the Valley was one of the reasons the White House/La Hood required that the Federal funding goes first to a segment there.
But Jones is also correct. We need qualified “firms” to design and build this new system. But, there is nothing to say that the worker bees, the Blue Collar staff, couldn’t come from the Valley. There are thousands of them available in the Valley.
Plus, material and supplies could come from Valley vendors.
Plus, banking – to the extent possible – could be done locally too.
Heck, it’s not like the City of Fresno is a backwoods hick town!
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:34 am
“Heck, it’s not like the City of Fresno is a backwoods hick town!”
No, it is the car theft capital of the US.
And Modesto the city Craig Ferguson jokes is “the place the young people go to get their crystal meth”. The audience nods and laughs.
“Of Course HSR Work Should Go To People Who Most Need It”
PB
Tutor-Saliba
TWU 250A – 13 undocumented no-shows, baby.
Peter Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:29 pm
Most people have no idea what you’re talking about most of the time. Just so you know.
BMF from San Diego Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 6:48 pm
Agreed, I did not understand.
Jonathan Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 7:35 pm
Synon is commenting that Fresno was Car-Theft Capital of the USA, and therefore _worse_ than a “backwoods hick town”. Synon is also drawing a parallel between all three of:
* CHSRA’s contractors, Parsons Brinkerhoff;
* the local SF constructoin firm Tutor Saliba, infamous for low-bidding on public works projects and then inflating the price after winning the contract;
* the union which SF Muni drivers belong to. (Possibly BART, but I’m pretty sure it’s Muni)
on the one hand; and the disadvantaged, unemployed, ex-homeless, and former convicts, on the other
Ted Judah Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:37 pm
It’s the peyote.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:58 pm
I dunno if it’s peyote but I want his dealer’s number because he’s selling him some really good stuff.
VBobier Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:48 am
Well you just attracted synos uncalled for rant…
No need to freak out. All they are really talking about is letting the various trades have apprentice programs. You start at the bottom, learn a trade, earn an entry level wage. If you make the cut, you can earn a living wage and support a family.
God forbid.
Jo Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:26 am
Exactly. And the contractors do not have to hire anybody who is not qualified. The five firms that have submitted bids are extremely experienced; they have had projects worldwide. I am sure that other countries have similar hiring requirements. Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley have many qualified firms and many qualified workers. The recession has hit some workers hard. There are a lot of misconceptions about Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley, and sometimes Fresno and the San Joaquin Valley are easy targets; HSR opponents will take advantage of this.
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:52 am
I suspect there are a few house framers and concrete men who built the houses that popped in the bubble that are still scraping by and need a good job.
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:57 am
Unless they impose quotas(and all the abuses that invites)they will get sued by the NAACP, et al.
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:59 am
Hey scrooge, put a sock in it.
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:04 pm
Highly politically incorrect to fire tokens.
A few million here, a few million there, it adds up. Those are the “gifts” Romney was talking about. But that is just a cost of doing business these days. Pass it on to the consumer.
Tim Cook and Apple will soon find out, just like Bill Gates before him, they will have to start funneling serious millions to politicians all over the place to foster “goodwill”.
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:21 pm
So NAACP has the staff and funding to engage in frivolous court cases? I seriously doubt that. Or maybe they prioritize their resources on legitimate ones?
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:34 pm
Not frivolous when you are guaranteed to win. Besides the machine would step in to bring the contractor around post haste and the case would be settled quickly.
We are all equal but some are more equal.
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:01 pm
Like all those disadvantaged Irish and Chinese 145 years ago?
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Can you imagine the outcry if an hsr contractor started importing cheap labor like the old days?
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Where does your freaking salad come from?
synonymouse Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:30 pm
Hopefully still from the ground.
You’d be better advised to worry where the water is going to come from to grow those veggies with an LA of 100 million thirsty souls.
Where I live water rates are so high, and rising, a victory garden sadly is not realistic cost-wise. One advantage of being on a well.
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:44 pm
Also there is GMO, salt accumulation in the soil, pesticides, and fertilizer runoff. Along with water resources things will get interesting in the coming decades.
Andy M Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 12:43 pm
don’t they already?
where do most construction workers come from?
Jonathan Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:17 pm
Synon obviously hasn’t been paying ANY attention to what Roberts and Scalia have been saying about the Voting Rights Act. Any lawsuit about “quotas” just has to be appealed all the way up, whist the Supreme Court has its current membership.
VBobier Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 11:49 am
that sounds good to Me, but not to people like syno, richard, etc…
This is just wrong on so many levels. Giving preference to high school dropouts and felons sends the wrong message. Want to get ahead? Put down your books, pick up a gun and go rob a Kwik-E-Mart. This is nuts.
I strongly support high-speed rail, and read this blog almost daily and I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed more strongly with Robert.
jimsf Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 3:11 pm
no where does he say to hire people who robbed a kwik e mart. The central valley has generations of high unemployment, substance abuse, economic hardship, etc. There is nothing wrong with giving people a second chance. To show them they can have a path out of poverty. It doesn not send a message that “its best to drop out, rob a store, and get a job on the hsr project”
It simply offers and opportunity for those who have some ambition, to break the cycle of poverty if they really want to. No one is going to go out and drag criminals off the street and put them to work. Instead, those people are seeking to improve their lot, will be directed by various social service points of contact “since have shown initiative, and are serious about bettering your life, have you considered a an apprentice progtram in one of the trades”
That is absolutely the right message.
FiendNCheeses Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 3:36 pm
“It’s to find ways to ensure that among the qualified candidates are those who have the most need, including those who never finished high school, who are currently homeless, or who have been convicted of a crime.”
Jim, one of the preferential criteria is a felony conviction, so yes, that certainly does send the wrong message.
Plenty of people who are law-abiding and worked hard to finish high-school are also ambitious, yet have fallen on hard times. What would you say to such a person? Why should they be cast aside in favor of someone who broke the law or dropped out of school?
The Central Valley needs jobs badly, and hiring for that segment should local, but the focus should be on hiring the best of the bunch not the worst.
jimsf Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 4:07 pm
there’s nothing wrong with the so called “message”
Reaching out to the community, the whole community, is the right thing to do. I’ve met plenty of people over the years who have never gone to prison but are no way “better” than many of those who have. They just never got caught. I also know people who, though they didn’t finish high school, are good people and very hard workers. And I’ve met plenty of people who are educated- non-criminal asswipes.
Jonathan Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:20 pm
Alon Levy Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:26 pm
The plan is to put those people to low-skill work, not to make them Governor.
Jo Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 4:55 pm
You are getting into stereotypes. What you are saying simply will not happen. The San Joaquin Valley has better people than that.
Jo Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:12 pm
The odds of an unemployed construction worker in the San Joaquin Valley of robbing “kwik-E-Mart”are probably the same as an unemployed tech worker in Silicon Valley robbing one.
FiendNCheeses Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:35 pm
You’re missing the point, they’ve already committed a felony. That’s why they’re called felons. They shouldn’t be given preferential treatment over non-felons.
joe Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 8:02 pm
I see no quote for felons. All hires have to be qualified.
If you go wikipedia and read, it’s hard to get all excited about OMG-preferential-treatment for felons – my god it’s a horrible burden. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felon#United_States
They can choose to hire qualified felons – if they do it meets the 10% guideline but they can hire foster kids, single parents, qualified high school drop outs and veterans.
FiendNCheeses Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:21 pm
First, I’m not stereotyping, I’m simply favoring those who obey the law and apply themselves in school over those who choose to drop out and commit felonies. It seems like common sense to me.
Second, if it “simply won’t happen” then why was the policy established?
Finally, you’re right, the San Joaquin Valley does have better people than that, and those are the people that should be building high-speed rail, not felons and drop outs.
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:36 pm
Agree. This is how I understood the original idea. Where the convict has paid his debt and needs a chance to start again.
Jo Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:20 pm
I agree. Keep in mind though any program to hire the disadvantaged would require that they have a high school diploma or get a GED, and even ex-felons that have paid their debt to society and are willing to be good productive citizens should get a chance and not be automatically ostracized.
Jo Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Some background: I once had a neighbor who was an ex-felon (ex-felon gang member). He came totally clean, kept his rented house clean like you would not believe and was a wonderful husband and father for his kids. But he was unable to find better paying jobs because of his record. Should not he be given a chance?
Travis D Reply:
March 7th, 2013 at 1:53 am
More to the point my brother used to run a meth ring. Most of the people in his employ did not want to be doing what they were doing. However these were people that stole a car when they were 16-17 (or got caught with some weed in a traffic stop) and now they cannot get a normal job. When that happens long enough they turn to crime because people want to be self sufficient somehow.
I’ve watched the videos of the track-laying for the Smart train and it’s not that labor intensive. A crew of six to ten manages to unload the continuous rail, lay down the ballast, install the concrete ties’ The idea that the track is going to be laid by thousands of “ex-convicts” laboring at fat union wages is as likely as Bono becoming Pope.
From “Blazin Saddles” opening line
Lyle: “Come on, boys! The way you’re lollygaggin’ around here with them picks and them shovels, you’d think it was a hundert an’ twenty degree. Can’t be more than a hundert an’ fourteen. ”
Welcome to your “easy” August 2013 summer job.
Jonathan Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:24 pm
Well, yes. The days of ocnstruction via stoop labor — pickaxe, shovel, and wheelbarrow – -are long gone.
Never mind ex-cons. If you want to see “automation”, look at a video-clip of contemporary re-ballasting of track.
Hm. Ex-cons doing manual labor? I’d rate those chances about the same as _Cher_ becoming Pope, actually ;)
J Baloun Reply:
March 5th, 2013 at 5:44 pm
You are frying my brain. The last time Cher was Pope they were doing it in the temple and Phinehas had to put a stop to it. Numbers 25:8
This is such a stupid policy it is hard to know where to start.
As an agency created by a state law (and a referendum on top of that) they are obligated to build the system within the limits of the law for the lowest cost and the highest quality. This is both a legal and a moral obligation. They are not obligated (legally or morally) to socially engineer the state of California.
1. Agreeing to pay union wages for non-union workers that could be hired at a cheaper price is just wrong. They are paying with public funds, this is not “their” money to change the world (or California) with, it is money they were entrusted to build a railroad with. This is not a jobs program, this is a capital infrastructure project.
2. Requirements to hire “disadvantaged” workers takes away from the central tenant of how and who you hire. You hire the most qualified people period. You should not even ask about the background unless it is relevant to the job at hand (you don’t hire felons to be your security guards). To even ask some of the questions is against the law because it can lead you to discriminate against protected groups and on a practical level who cares. I don’t care if you are unemployed, homeless, have 8 kids, etc. I care if you have the skills and desire to do the job at hand.
The whole policy is absurd and the only silver lining I take from it is that it is just a political ploy and will have little impact on real hiring anyway (because the people that hire will operate as I describe above). So each company will hire a token person and the real impact to the project will be low.
But it shows the level of incompetence in the authority that they are worried about this and not the fact they are already 1 year behind the original schedule and they have not even broken ground yet.
Amazing, they literally hold the key to future HSR work in the entire US. If they come in on time and under budget other HSR supporters will point to this as a watershed moment. But if they FAIL, well the opposite is true, they will doom HSR in the US. I would think supporters would want to do everything possible to succeeed which means the best employees…not the fairest hiring practices.
jimsf Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 9:40 am
perhaps they’ll do both.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 9:48 am
The people of California, being fair and equitable, one might even say moral, want to assure that contractors they hire pay fair wages. The people of the other United States, also wanting to be fair and equitable and one might say moral. want to assure that contractors pay fair wages. The California bond money isn’t for job creation but the Federal money is. We want low wages why don’t we just import a bunch of Laotians? Give them some shipping containers to live in and build some shower buildings in the middle of the field we put the container on?
John Nachtigall Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 1:26 pm
Fair is simple…what will the market accept. No one is under indentured servitude in the US. By paying more than the market rate you are spending more than you have to. If you offer to little no one ill work for you. Capitalism works, it does not need a boost from others to “pick” the fair price point
D. P. Lubic Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 2:12 pm
Some people would disagree that we are getting fairly paid:
http://rwer.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/the-kids-will-be-rich-unless-peter-petersons-kids-take-their-money/
http://www.progressive-economics.ca/2013/03/05/guest-blog-from-chris-watson-if-you-cant-buy-i-cant-sell/
Think capitalists are able to pay a higher wage? I say they (a) don’t want to, and (b) can’t even if they want to. How is this?
Well, I would illustrate this with a great capitalist named Henry Ford, who doubled the minimum wage in his day by paying people $5 per day back around 1914 or so. Two things let him do this. One was his being Henry Ford; no one else would have had the vision to realize prosperous workers could also be customers. and indeed other capitalists of his day thought he was crazy and a traitor to capitalists.
He had another advantage, though, and that was that at the time, Ford Motor Company had an overall market share of 50%, and a low-price car market share of 90%! He was visionary enough to do that, and didn’t have to worry about competition, either. Nobody, not even Wal-Mart, has those qualities and opportunities today–and you need both the vision and the ability to not have the competition undercut you.
This is an argument for increasing the minimum wage. If I could advise the President, I would suggest he bring up just these history lessons, and then tell the big money boys, “You have to pay your people more, so they can buy your products. It’s like a farmer fertilizing his fields so he can keep things growing. I’ll be willing to be your bad guy if I have to do so, but this is something you do need, as well as your employees.”
To bad I don’t really have his ear. . .
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 2:23 pm
I knew people who worked in Edgewater Assembly for that 5 dollars a day. It was 50 cents an hour, since it was a ten hour day and a six day week.
John Nachtigall Reply:
March 7th, 2013 at 6:51 am
Or perhaps Ford paid the highest wages to attract the absolute best employees to work on his new untested production line because he knew he needed better than the average. It matters little because he was a private citizen who could do as he wished. This is public money
And I don’t know anyone who thinks they are paid as much as they are worth, but everyone is paid what they deserve, because they voluntarily took hat ever job they are in.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 2:19 pm
And skilled Laotians would be more than whiling to live in shipping containers and use communal showers for 2 bucks an hour if we let them.
Alon Levy Reply:
March 7th, 2013 at 2:48 pm
Why go to unskilled Laotians? Pretty much any job description in the US could be done by immigrants for less money. Let Indian doctors practice in the US without jumping through multi-year hoops and suddenly doctors won’t be worth $200,000.
jimsf Reply:
March 7th, 2013 at 2:54 pm
Alon, how bout this. why don’t we just put all americans out of work or reduce their wages to a third world level. That way not will we all be able to live in poverty, but the one percent can keep even more profit! And since mud huts are so cheap to build, housing prices will come down too!
adirondacker12800 Reply:
March 7th, 2013 at 3:39 pm
skilled Laoations. I’m sure there are lots of men in Laos who know how to drive concrete trucks
and or weld.
The cost of hiring a new member of the bar is dropping. So are law school admissions. We don’t have to import doctors. There’s more than enough Americans willing to go to medical school. Believe the darker conspiracy theories about it, the theory is that the AMA restricts the number of admissions keeping the supply of new doctors artifically low. All we would have to do is make med school free, for people who would be willing to work where the supply is low for five or ten years – to forgive the loan they would have to pay back instead. And a lot of what my doctor does, doesn’t need to be done by a doctor. When I was a child only doctors gave shots. Only doctors took blood pressure readings. Well the blood pressure readings that went into your chart. No reason why a well trains nurse practitioner couldn’t take care of most things I go to the doctor for. And there are some things that I don’t really need to see her for either, she could do it over the phone and send the prescription to my pharmacy electronically.
synonymouse Reply:
March 6th, 2013 at 11:33 am
The CHSRA cannot “FAIL” because the machine that is building it does not care if it works or not. That is immaterial; what is relevant is that the friends of the regime receive their payoffs.
This is a jobs program, totally. Every aspect relating to functionality has been allowed to devolve to the path of least political resistance. Tejon is manifestly superior in every respect, yet the project’s political backers(plus PB worshippers)are so apathetic and so bored with this thing they cannot even be bothered to “outreach” and bring the Tejon Ranch Co. and Santa Clarita around.
Nothing fails so long as you are willing to pour unlimited subsidies into it. Look at BART’s rural redoubts. Or TWU 250A and 13 undocumented no-shows.