[TheRealVille]

Of that you may be sure. I have provided an excerpt and a link below to substaniate my position as it applies to the building trades only. I have no doubt but that what you say is true and that you have first hand knowledge of what you speak. No disrespect intended but, a nuclear facility is a notch up from coal mining. Only certified craftspeople, verified on-site through testing proceedures, are even allowed to perform many of the functions associated with construction at that level. I agree that to no small degree, craftsmanship is a matter of personal integrity. But, on the other hand, 4 and 5 year apprenticeships and on the job training requirements assure a measure of compitence that non-union firms just cannot match.

I came through in the 60's and I'm not just blowing gas here.
EXCERPT---
We recommend several actions to mitigate the risks associated with the limited availability of highly-qualified personnel:

• NSSS vendors and EPC contractors should complete the plant design(including the routing of small bore piping, tubing, and conduit to the maximum amount practical) prior to starting construction, prepare a detailed construction schedule, and plan for sufficient
staffing for rapid response teams at the point of work for problem resolution. To the maximum extent possible, personnel with experience designing and building nuclear units should be used to design and construct GEN III+ units. These steps are needed to sustain the high labor productivity rates necessary for achieving the desired construction schedules
and project costs. The past consequences of not having this level of design completion and project preparation have been that labor requirements and construction schedule durations were often doubled.

• EPC contractors as a group should negotiate and sign a national labor agreement with major labor unions to provide flexibility in staffing nuclear construction projects (e.g., allowing union members from different areas to work at any nuclear plant construction site). This step helps ensures the needed construction workers will be available.
END---


http://www.ne.doe.gov/np2010/reports/mpr...102105.pdf

That used to one of my fortes, nuclear pipefitting. I have worked in several. I don't do those anymore, but I worked them a lot in the 90's. There is a reason Nuclear power plants don't hire non union workers to do the construction, maintenance work.

[Harry Rex Vonner]

Union workers by definitiion, are more highly skilled. When clients invest huge sums of capital to build plants, factories, mills, hospitals, schools and the like, they normally prefer the surety that is represented with union construction firms and labor. Getting down off of the soap box for just a minute, I can speak to the matter of unioin built versus non-union built structures from first hand experience. Sometimes, even going in and tearing out structure that failed to meet specifications. I can't imagine anybody allowing a non-union entity to construct a nuclear facility for example. Being able to count on professional craftsmen is the calling card of union labor. It's about training, skill level and management. I have said for years, that we union folks risk too much with our efforts to manipulate the market and legislators. What we can buy, others can certainly up the ante on.

Let's assume that all you say is true. Employers, those who are risking their own capital, should have the choice of hiring union or non-union workers. If the union workers really are more competent, the employers should have the right to weigh that fact against the major increase in cost from hiring union workers. The employer should have the right to weigh the options and to succeed or fail on his/her own.

[Hoot Gibson]

Of that you may be sure. I have provided an excerpt and a link below to substaniate my position as it applies to the building trades only. I have no doubt but that what you say is true and that you have first hand knowledge of what you speak. No disrespect intended but, a nuclear facility is a notch up from coal mining. Only certified craftspeople, verified on-site through testing proceedures, are even allowed to perform many of the functions associated with construction at that level. I agree that to no small degree, craftsmanship is a matter of personal integrity. But, on the other hand, 4 and 5 year apprenticeships and on the job training requirements assure a measure of compitence that non-union firms just cannot match.

I came through in the 60's and I'm not just blowing gas here.
EXCERPT---
We recommend several actions to mitigate the risks associated with the limited availability of highly-qualified personnel:

• NSSS vendors and EPC contractors should complete the plant design(including the routing of small bore piping, tubing, and conduit to the maximum amount practical) prior to starting construction, prepare a detailed construction schedule, and plan for sufficient
staffing for rapid response teams at the point of work for problem resolution. To the maximum extent possible, personnel with experience designing and building nuclear units should be used to design and construct GEN III+ units. These steps are needed to sustain the high labor productivity rates necessary for achieving the desired construction schedules
and project costs. The past consequences of not having this level of design completion and project preparation have been that labor requirements and construction schedule durations were often doubled.

• EPC contractors as a group should negotiate and sign a national labor agreement with major labor unions to provide flexibility in staffing nuclear construction projects (e.g., allowing union members from different areas to work at any nuclear plant construction site). This step helps ensures the needed construction workers will be available.
END---


http://www.ne.doe.gov/np2010/reports/mpr...102105.pdf

I have no doubt that there are specific areas where union labor still has an edge in training and the quality of results. Most of my experience with union and non-union operations was in the coal industry. Unions among computer professionals are rare, if not non-existent. However, people in my profession once thought that Americans would always have an edge in technical fields, but Indian programmers have shot down that notion. :biggrin:

[TheRealThing]

I have no doubt that there are specific areas where union labor still has an edge in training and the quality of results. Most of my experience with union and non-union operations was in the coal industry. Unions among computer professionals are rare, if not non-existent. However, people in my profession once thought that Americans would always have an edge in technical fields, but Indian programmers have shot down that notion. :biggrin:

Yeah, and not knowing that much about programming and cyber warfare etc., I have been concerned of late that America may not be able to protect any of her secrets. Military secrets, banking secrets and industrial secrets would head the list for me. Is it a problem, or not?

[4_real]

Manchin 2016!

[TheRealVille]

In the construction industry, even in non right to work states, companies can still hire non union, if they so choose. There are no laws whatsoever that make a company hire union employees. Granted, like Marathon in Ashland, KY., when they decided to also hire non union, when they hire us the wages go to 100% scale. We gave them a 90% scale until they started hiring non union. You want to know who they call when they need skilled workers, instead of just the non skilled non union workers, union. The welding was a prime example a few years ago. The non union workers couldn't handle the welding part of the job, so they had to call us. They had to pay 100% of our scale also, after years of giving them 90%.

[TheRealThing]

Let's assume that all you say is true. Employers, those who are risking their own capital, should have the choice of hiring union or non-union workers. If the union workers really are more competent, the employers should have the right to weigh that fact against the major increase in cost from hiring union workers. The employer should have the right to weigh the options and to succeed or fail on his/her own.

All true, and is in fact the case in the modern world. My position is that where union workmen once commanded ultimate respect because of their unquestioned skill and committment, gradually over time saw that respect errode due to a variety of causes. Complacency being the number one shortfall, for much the same reasons that America now finds itself in the position of seeing the gap that seperated us from the rest of the world, shrink to a very bridgeable span. The battle rages in fact, on a number of national and global fronts. Moral, financial, knowledge/educational, science and defense. We live in the age marked by the increase of knowledge. It takes no prisoners and as you well know, knowledge is power. Will America prevail? At any rate, clients have the right, to use union or non-union labor. And, no matter what union bosses tell their membership, to the victor will go the spoils. In this case natural selection favors the strongest.

[Hoot Gibson]

Yeah, and not knowing that much about programming and cyber warfare etc., I have been concerned of late that America may not be able to protect any of her secrets. Military secrets, banking secrets and industrial secrets would head the list for me. Is it a problem, or not?

It is a potential problem anywhere you have foreign nationals doing contract work, but I am more worried about the security risks posed by having somebody like Obama in the White House. The Chinese got access to all of the technology that they could copy during the Clinton years and all it took to gain access to it was some illegal campaign donations. Obama's scheme for allowing foreign nationals to make unlimited campaign donations via credit card is probably only the tip of the iceberg of what has gone on these past four years.