Scott Walker replacing union workers with prison inmates

[Wayne]

Again, I feel like I stepped into an argument when all I wanted was a conversation. The recent unpleasantries with Francis have, I suppose, made me leary of online arguments. If you want to fly down here, I'll buy you a beer and we'll discuss it. Otherwise, I don't care enough to argue.

 

[metalman]

if you think being a carpenter or electrician is easy, go and try it. I respect those careers.

Architects, contractors and tradesmen are my customers.

Rough carpentry, roofing, brick work, painting are all physically demanding, but anyone with some mechanical ability can do those trades with a minimum of training.

An Electrician or and A/C repair requires some technical knowledge, and test equipment to preform.

Some things like Finish Carpentry, and tile work require an attention to details and mechanical ability.

I've done all these jobs as parts of different restoration projects at one time or another.
So Yes, I think their all easy.

 

[metalman]

Again, I feel like I stepped into an argument when all I wanted was a conversation. The recent unpleasantries with Francis have, I suppose, made me leary of online arguments. If you want to fly down here, I'll buy you a beer and we'll discuss it. Otherwise, I don't care enough to argue.

A wink upgrade to the smileys!

 

[metalman]

And yet the shows still make money? Excellent. Obviously if the labour was overpriced then the business would become inviable and the entertainment district would close down - yet the show goes on.

Carnegie Hall Tax forms are public because its a "Nonprofit" in the "public interest" foundation

For a donation of between $2,500 and $50,000, you too, can become a Carnegie Hall Patron. Patrons are asked to donate to help keep ticket prices affordable, subsidize community outreach, and preserve the landmark Carnegie Hall building. The money goes towards staffing costs. The Carnegie Hall director gets paid the largest salary: about $950,000 Then the next highest paid employees are the stagehands Dennis O'Connell, John Cardinale, Kenn Beltrone, and John Goodson. Carnegie Hall is not a high-tech opera house, it's a concert hall. An international star pianist can make up to $20,000 for a performance at Carnegie. The stagehands are getting about $50,000 a week between the 5 of them (these are the ONLY stagehands allowed to work at Carnegie by the union) .

These exorbitant salaries hurt consumers with sky-high ticket prices. At Carnegie Hall, an orchestra seat can sell for as much as $200. And its rediculous because Carnegie hall doesn't require much if any changes between performances. So on your next trip to NY pay close attention to the stagehands, because that's what the majority of the price of the ticket is to cover, not the "talent".

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

For a donation of between $2,500 and $50,000, you too, can become a Carnegie Hall Patron.
[...]
These exorbitant salaries hurt consumers with sky-high ticket prices. At Carnegie Hall, an orchestra seat can sell for as much as $200.

Carnegie Hall is an upscale market, obviously. They and their patrons live in a different social stratum and high ticket prices keeps the riff-raff out.

Mind you, final game tickets to the Stanley Cup in Vancouver were selling for about $2000 from the scalpers!! There were enough people with enough money and interest to support that price.

The Carnegie Hall director gets paid the largest salary: about $950,000

So about twice as much as the top carpenter then.

An international star pianist can make up to $20,000 for a performance at Carnegie. The stagehands are getting about $50,000 a week between the 5 of them (these are the ONLY stagehands allowed to work at Carnegie by the union) .

So one stagehand can make $10,000 a week and one star pianist can make $100,000 a week. OK.

Still, it does seem high - it's as much as the top carpenter is making ... unless what you are saying is that the carpenters are stagehands - so they have 5 staff that do everything?

Unless they are pulling a lot of overtime then it also look like they are above scale.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

I've done all these jobs as parts of different restoration projects at one time or another.
So Yes, I think their all easy.

I seem to find programming quite easy and when I was a kid I just didn't understand that there could be any work in the future as a programmer because who would pay someone else to have all the fun? So I went off to find things I couldn't do well so that it would be "hard" and more like my perception of what work should be as opposed to play.

This was quite insane, of course, especially because I missed the really good years for programming but I did a bunch of interesting things and a lot of not interesting things. I make my living writing (and fixing) code these days and it's not bad but I know that a lot of people don't find it "easy" the way I do and the people who pay me to do it certainly have no interest in doing it themselves. So just because something is easy for you doesn't mean it's easy.

 

[metalman]

So one stagehand can make $10,000 a week and one star pianist can make $100,000 a week. OK.

Still, it does seem high - it's as much as the top carpenter is making ... unless what you are saying is that the carpenters are stagehands - so they have 5 staff that do everything?

Unless they are pulling a lot of overtime then it also look like they are above scale.

Carnegie Hall Show Schedule
no shows scheduled until Sept 24th, Oct1, Oct5, ...
but the 5 stadgehands are being paid 80 hrs per week (guaranteed min)

 

[faethor]

Rupert Murdoch make over $30Million in 2008. I'd bet these people that made 1/10th of his salary worked as many hours, perhaps more, in the entertainment industry.

Metalman I have to ask you what do you have against the rich? We saw Red here complain that jobs are McJobs. If you guys hate the higher paid union jobs then your answer to this is to give them low paid McJobs.

 

[redrumloa]

Yadda yadda yadda yadda

BRING BACK CHAIN GANGS!

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Yadda yadda yadda yadda

BRING BACK CHAIN GANGS!

We could put some of the low risk ones to work managing buildings. Some people might have issues about security but I'm sure some laws could be relaxed if it would help large prison corporations out.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

Carnegie Hall Show Schedule
no shows scheduled until Sept 24th, Oct1, Oct5, ...
but the 5 stadgehands are being paid 80 hrs per week (guaranteed min)

according to the New York Times:

(of course it's from 2009, but so was the bloomberg story but they both quote the $20,000 figure for top pianists so I presume this or Bloomberg is the source of your post)

The stagehands, who have all worked at Carnegie for more than two decades, practically live in the hall, it is said, often arriving at 8 a.m. and leaving after midnight.

16 hours a day? Yup, that's an 80 hr week. Who among us doesn't wish we could all work 16 hour days so we wouldn't have to spend waking time with our families.

The stagehands, Mr. Gillinson pointed out, have huge and varied jobs to carry out, far more so than at halls like the Met or Avery Fisher, where the fare is more predictable. They must set up and dismantle configurations for daytime rehearsals and evening performances on all three stages for 800 events a season, sometimes seven days a week.
They must move pianos, unload instruments from trucks, set up and adjust sound equipment, move risers for orchestras, keep an eye on maintenance throughout the building, fix seats, remember different orchestral seatings and even keep in mind what kind of podium a conductor prefers.
“I never had a problem with what they make,” said James D. Nomikos, a former operations director at Carnegie who was their supervisor. “They sacrifice their family life, their time. By the time their careers are over, they’re broken, with all that lifting.”
Mr. Nomikos said the main reason to let the stagehands pile on the overtime was to provide continuity during the day. It makes no sense to have one set of workers set up for a morning rehearsal and a different set do it at the evening performance.

I wonder what age they retire at?

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

While googling around I found that Rush Limbaugh had made hay over these figures too but that pill popping bloated sack makes $28 million a year and as far as I can tell wouldn't be able to push a piano if his life depended on it.

 

[cecilia]

I've done all these jobs as parts of different restoration projects at one time or another.
So Yes, I think their all easy.

news flash, I can make amazing visual effects and i find it relatively "easy"....but I'd bet you couldn't do it.
That's because I have worked YEARS developing my talents to get the job done efficiently, quickly and effectively. Call me crazy I think I deserve to get a nice amount of money for this dedicated effort. Plus, this is something very few people on this planet can do.
The people (like carpenters) who have worked as hard as I have on their talents should also be paid well. Why not? and why do the fat pig CEO's who sit around spending deserve anything?

 

[metalman]

Metalman I have to ask you what do you have against the rich? We saw Red here complain that jobs are McJobs. If you guys hate the higher paid union jobs then your answer to this is to give them low paid McJobs.

This is just union extortion, their screwing public non profit foundations, and if you do some investigation of Local 1 of the IATSE you'll find their also screwing over the other members of Local 1.

 

[metalman]

16 hours a day? Yup, that's an 80 hr week. Who among us doesn't wish we could all work 16 hour days so we wouldn't have to spend waking time with our families.

I wonder what age they retire at?

Obviously you never looked at the Carnegie show schedule, there are NO shows scheduled for Carnegie until September/October. They get 80 hrs a week "guaranteed" while the hall is closed. They never retire, they die on the job sitting in their wheelchair collecting double time, then the job is passed to one of their sons.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

... there are NO shows scheduled for Carnegie until September/October. They get 80 hrs a week "guaranteed" while the hall is closed. They never retire, they die on the job sitting in their wheelchair collecting double time, then the job is passed to one of their sons.

Looks like June/July/August are their off season. Shows run through September/October/November/December/January/February/March/April/May

They are responsible for building maintenance as well and there's a lot of building there so I imagine that they can find things to keep themselves busy.

As for working from a wheel chair I doubt that would be physically possible. Rush can continue to do his "job" from a wheel chair because all he has to do is flap his gums, but physical labour requires more mobility (though they do claim to be an "equal opportunity" employer.

Now, you seem to be implying that they will get 80 hrs even if they don't show up. Am I interpreting your words correctly? If so, how do you know this?

 

[metalman]

Now, you seem to be implying that they will get 80 hrs even if they don't show up. Am I interpreting your words correctly? If so, how do you know this?

Its on the IRS f0rm 990 that the Carnegie foundation files where they have to list all employees paid $50k/yr or more. There are ONLY 5 hourly employees (stagehands) listed, all being paid 80hrs/week.

This is Carnegie Hall not a theater, there are no props, and the stage barely changes between performances.

They're UNION stagehands, they don't do building maintenance.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

This is Carnegie Hall not a theater, there are no props, and the stage barely changes between performances.

They're UNION stagehands, they don't do building maintenance.

Maybe you could reread the bit I quoted from the New York Times article.

 

[FluffyMcDeath]

3% of adult Americans are in jail. 10% of adult blacks are in jail! That's a huge labour source. That's a larger percentage of Americans in jail than Hitler had Germans in concentration camps. Hitler used his inmates for forced labour. It's always tempting to do that when you have a lot of captive people. In fact, let me be even more cynical than that. It's good to find ways of locking lots of people up if you want to use forced labour.

Now look at the savings of doing that. First of all, all those people who could be productive people free in society if there was decent work available (not just soul crushing stupid work) get locked up at public expense. Now we give private companies the right to run prisons so that the prisoners are still locked up at public expense instead of being productive.

Now let the prisoners do work that is currently being done by free members of society who pay taxes and buy homes and help the economy run by consuming the services of others like plumbers and walmart greeters. This leads to an immediate saving by the government in the short term. This sort of thing is great because then you can look at a surplus and use it to cut the taxes of people that own corporations and private prisons.

In the longer term government revenues fall because there are less tax payers and less money flowing in the economy to tax. This is also great because it gives an excuse for government cuts - maybe hire more prisoners.

However, hiring prisoners only saves a little money and it doesn't offset the costs the government pays to the companies that keep people locked up - no, because the companies don't drop their prices for that service but they get to keep the profits from hiring out their captives.

This is just another way of redistributing the wealth - upwards - while at the same time removing freedom. As more people fall into poverty more people will run afoul of the law as they get desperate. As more people default on their bills more people will go to prison for debt and then they will be indentured labourers. This is more or less how Dickensian England got around the problem of slavery. They didn't have gobs of cheap energy to do the work back then - Hitler had trouble getting enough energy for his war machine so he needed slaves and one day maybe not too far in the future America won't be able to meet its energy needs and they'll need slaves. At least America will be ready - it seems.

 

[faethor]

3% of adult Americans are in jail. 10% of adult blacks are in jail! That's a huge labour source.

Wanna save money? Philly estimates they saved over $2Million per yer by not prosecuting pot arrests.