Nov 18. 2010: Paving Daytona

[Lamplighter]

That's the most labor-saving devise I've seen in a very long time.

[classicman]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

That's the most labor-saving devise I've seen in a very long time.

as proven by the eight guys doing nothing but watching the one guy "work"

[HungLikeJesus]

There are two guys in the machine that you can't see and they rotate out.

Actually, I think all but the guys in orange vests are gawkers.

[classicman]

I'm sure .. .. ..
mouse over the smilie up there "rolls eyes (sarcastic)

[xoxoxoBruce]

Might want to turn the muzak down.

[Lamplighter]

Oh! I take back what I said above.

I thought the machine automatically took pavers from the hopper
and placed them in the herring-bone patter and laid them down.

If it takes 2 men to do the loading and set the pattern, it ain't all that great...
a sheet of plywood tied to the tailgate of a pickup truck would do just about the same thing.

[classicman]

that is the coolest thing. I know a few people who do the overlay, both concrete and asphalt ... That post by Bruce is WAY cooler than their stuff.

[Gravdigr]

Do you enjoy driving that new car 100,000 miles before the first scheduled tune up? Do you enjoy spark plugs that last 100's of thousands of miles without needing replacing every few thousand miles? Do you enjoy brake shoes that last forty, fifty thousand miles and longer? Do you enjoy tires that last 50,000 miles and longer? Do you enjoy shocks and struts that seemingly last forever?

If you do, thank the research and trickle-down technology that comes directly from auto racing. Like NASCAR.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

Oh! I take back what I said above.

I thought the machine automatically took pavers from the hopper
and placed them in the herring-bone patter and laid them down.

If it takes 2 men to do the loading and set the pattern, it ain't all that great...
a sheet of plywood tied to the tailgate of a pickup truck would do just about the same thing.

Are you kidding me? laying those pavers is intense manual labor, it would take a hundred men to keep up with that machine, and they wouldn't get spacing or level as uniform.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by lupin..the..3rd

NASCAR makes me LOL. Driving in circles? Only turning left? How dull.

Unions are responsible for the modern "amenities" that all workers enjoy today. Things you take for granted, like Five-day work weeks (Saturdays off), were originally Union ideas, as are many of the current worker protection laws.

That said, Unions are obsolete now, what with all the labor laws to protect employees these days. Workers comp, OSHA, Minimum wage, Non-discrimination laws, etc. 100 years ago, we didn't have any of these laws, and people depended on the Unions to provide these worker protections. But that's just not the case any more. IMO Unions don't serve any purpose but to (drastically) inflate the cost of labor. As an example, look at auto workers. The workers at non-union factories, (like the BMW and Mercedes factories here in the US) make more money and have better benefits than their Big-3 Union counterparts. The automakers who employ non-union workers also enjoy lower operating expenses. Lower costs and better employee compensation = a win-win situation. I'll never work for a union - I like the freedom to negotiate my own salary and benefits package, and like the freedom of "at will" employment.

So everything is right in lupin's world, and won't change.
Management is beneficent and will never take advantage of it's labor force,
and certainly would never coerce or threaten it's work force.

And even if the overpaid automobile workers have to take cuts,
it will never affect other industries, and won't affect me.
I'll never work for a union.
My boss loves me !

Lupin's world-view has now been confirmed by the NYTimes

Unions Yield on Wage Scales to Preserve Jobs
By LOUIS UCHITELLE
Published: November 19, 2010

Organized labor appears to be losing an important battle in the Great Recession.
Even at manufacturing companies that are profitable,
union workers are reluctantly agreeing to tiered contracts that create two levels of pay.

The arrangement was a fairly common means of shrinking labor costs in the recession of the early 1980s.
At the end of the contracts, however, wages generally snapped back up to a single tier.
At G.M., Chrysler, Delphi and Caterpillar, the wages will not be snapping back.

Nor will that happen for workers at three big manufacturers here in southeastern Wisconsin
— where 15 percent of the work force is in manufacturing, a bigger proportion than any other state.
These employers — Harley-Davidson, Mercury Marine and Kohler — have all but succeeded
in the last year or so in erecting two-tier systems that could last well into a recovery.

His [Harley-Davidson] union recently accepted a new contract that freezes wages for existing workers
for most of its seven years, lowers pay for new hires, dilutes benefits
and brings temporary workers to the assembly line at even lower pay and no benefits
whenever there is a rise in demand for Harley’s roaring bikes.

Increasing the pressure, Harley-Davidson and Mercury Marine, a unit of the Brunswick Corporation,
publicly declared that they would move factory operations to lower-cost American cities
— Stillwater, Okla., for example, or Kansas City, Mo. —
if the unions failed to accept the concessions set forth in remarkably similar contracts.

[footfootfoot]

Originally Posted by glatt

I'm generally very pro union, but I've heard a few stories about when we have trials in NYC. What a pain in the ass it's been because of the unions.

Normally, when we go to trial somewhere, it's a big trial, and we set up a room or suite of rooms in a hotel with all the equipment and supplies we need. It's an all hands kind of thing where you just do what needs to be done to get the place set up. Rolling copiers off the truck and onto a freight elevator to move them into place. Running extension cords around and taping them down. Etc. Etc. In NYC, we can't do any of that. We have to get official local union people, and they have a "that's not my job"and a "that's not your job either" attitude. Like it takes an electrician to plug a heavy duty extension cord into an outlet and stretch it across the room to the printer. You have to have the appropriate person for each job. We can't do anything ourselves. Try to pick up a box of paper and move it across the room, and a union guy yells at you for doing union work.

First time we had a trial in NYC, it was infuriating. Now we leave for trial a day or so earlier to allow time for the unions to take their pound of flesh at their own slow pace.

Not sure if it's all of NYC that's union, or just the hotel near the courthouse that we usually use.

But having said that, I really do support the unions and what they have done for the middle class. I like my weekends off and overtime when I work long hours and benefits.

Very typical of Film Crews and the unions. We had an old joke: "How many Grips does it take to change a lightbulb?" "Grips don't change lightbulbs, that's a gaffer's job."

The one time I saw the unions willingly break one of their rules was when frustrated director and assistant producer wanted to get some plywood moved in off the truck and on to the set. The union guys saw them coming into the building with it and they freaked. The Director and the AP held their hands up and SSHHH-ed them saying "Keep it down, we just stole this forma jobsite down the street." The Union guys then dropped what they were doing and helped them move the plywood quickly onto the set.

Unions are a two edged sword.

[footfootfoot]

here is a cool video of a machine replacing railroad ties.