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Originally Posted by Greedy,Greedy,Greedy
The privatization is pushed as saving money because the private contractors won't be subject to the same "government red tape" (e.g., unions and civil service rules).
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That's the ostensible rationale, but it's also about the gains to politicians from being about to hand out the work, which, as you say, comes with its own effective taxes.
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It's pretty simple. My uncles were union carpenters and iron workers, and back in the day when someone got hired for a union job fresh off their training (a journeyman), at a point when they knew what they were doing but had modest work experience, they'd get $30-$40 an hour in NYC when the minimum wage was close to $5. The nonunion guys would get hired knowing squat at $10 an hour and move up with on-the-job training. But for someone experienced, comparing a $50 union wage and a $20 non-union one was pretty common. And the non-union work sites were also overrun by minimum wage workers (and sometimes sub-minimum wage illegal workers) who especially could do things done by carpenters on union sites. Never as well, of course, but they could do them.
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My grandfather told me that the only two organizations that ever did anything for him in his life were the Democratic Party and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He was an Elk, too, but that was different.
