Tunnels in the US cost more than anywhere else

Re:Tunnels in the US cost more than anywhere else by burntwater on Monday November 02, 2020 @05:32PM (#24974271)

It can certainly be painful from a management standpoint. But actually the biggest pain point isn't the hourly wages -- we all love to earn money, after all. The biggest pain point is labor minimums. If you need to hire from Department A, you need to hire a minimum of 3 people even when only 1 is needed. Or if you need to hire from Departments A and B, then you're required to also hire Departments C, D, and E (all with their minimum crew requirements).

It makes for accomplishing smaller projects near prohibitively expensive. And typically you can't gang together multiple projects in order to optimize labor usage.

Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about the arrangements I have to work with.

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Re:Tunnels in the US cost more than anywhere else by skeletal88 on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @08:16AM (#24979328)

So this is the real reason for high costs in construction in the US. Absurd "labor minimums" ? Haven't heard about anything like this here in Europe..

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Re:Tunnels in the US cost more than anywhere else by someguydave on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @08:32AM (#24979453)

Are those labor minimums union rules or are they imposed by government regulation?

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Re:Tunnels in the US cost more than anywhere else by pwinnski on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @12:14PM (#24981589)

Good question. I assumed union rules, but I could see OSHA being the factor here, too.

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Re:Tunnels in the US cost more than anywhere else by burntwater on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @05:45PM (#24984907)

For me, they're negotiated union rules.

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Re:Tunnels in the US cost more than anywhere else by someguydave on Wednesday November 04, 2020 @10:49AM (#24990069)

Why can’t you hire non-union labor? Is it unavailable?

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