Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop
But the whole point is that the numbers aren't going to be that different. Union wages are not 3x non-union wages and -- more critically to this point -- the non-union contractors usually price lower. Do I think the stimulus is "the same"? No, and I said there's a non-zero difference, but it's small.
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It's pretty common for union wages to be 2x to even 3x times non-union; you also regularly deal with a skill difference, because non-union contractors usually put fewer and less skilled people on the same job because they don't have union rules, including safety rules.
The profitability for nonunion contractors is significantly higher. Again, by a factor, maybe just a factor of 2 instead of 3, but a significant factor. Maybe you could argue that the non-union job should be 95M instead of 100M, but experience around here is that the graft cost for the non-union "privatization" contracts is a lot higher - Charlie's buddies are making a lot of money, but they've got to keep the Republican party and its candidates funded as a quid pro quo, and need to hire the right PR and lobbying firms with Charlie Baker's out of office friends. So even if the nonunion contractor makes more from the job, they have a lot of mouths to feed.
