Lady Liberty

[wetibbe]

Update on our Statue of Liberty.

As friends know I am New Yorker living about 20 miles North of the Great Lady. She was a gift of France and located on an Island in the Lower Hudson River Bay on the Jersey side accessible by ferry from Battery Park, lower Manhattan and Liberty Park New Jersey.

The Sandy storm inundated the Island completely by 5 feet of sea water, knocking out transformers, destroying the custodian house and causing much other damage. It is closed pending repairs. rehab which I excepted to take many months.

[wetibbe]

The South Street Seaport is opening for business this morning 12/14/2012. It is a tourist/shopping/mall/museum area on the South East side of Manhattan, near Wall Street. Temporary heat is being blown in. The elevators still are not in operation but stairs are open.

The Intrepid, a vintage aircraft carrier, on the West Side of Manhattan, in the Hudson River, will open soon. It has many vintage aircraft on deck and it is a very big tourist attraction. Apparently the ancillary support buildings on shore sustained damage to electrical equipment.

A friend of my Sons, living on the Shrewsbury River, Jersey shore, had his condo flooded with 5 feet of water. Lost everything in the basement and first floor. Contractors have stripped the flooring and drywall. Carted away all rugs, utilities, furniture. He hasn't received a penny yet from the insurance and had to write checks to the contractor. He also lost his boat.

A fishing Buddy lost his boat too. Neither of those two have even seen an insurance adjustor as yet.

LIPA Long Island Power Authority officials are resigning. There are still hundreds of homes without power. Many homeless still.

The news reported that when the out of state utility company's came some were not told where to go or what to do. Some slept in their trucks. FEMA is just now providing trailers.

My nieces power was off. An out of state'r came and looked. He said there was a broken wire "up there" and tried to leave. She wouldn't let him. He said Con Edison reg's require rubber protection over the shoulders and we only require rubber gloves. So he sent her back in the house and said: "NO witnesses". He climbed up and fixed it. Her power was back on in an hour.

Other out of stater's from the South were non-union. They were told they couldn't work because they were not union. So a few went back home. Eventually it was straightened out but so far the culprits haven't been made public.

[ilbegone]

LIPA Long Island Power Authority officials are resigning. There are still hundreds of homes without power. Many homeless still.

The news reported that when the out of state utility company's came some were not told where to go or what to do. Some slept in their trucks. FEMA is just now providing trailers.

My nieces power was off. An out of state'r came and looked. He said there was a broken wire "up there" and tried to leave. She wouldn't let him. He said Con Edison reg's require rubber protection over the shoulders and we only require rubber gloves. So he sent her back in the house and said: "NO witnesses". He climbed up and fixed it. Her power was back on in an hour.

Other out of stater's from the South were non-union. They were told they couldn't work because they were not union. So a few went back home. Eventually it was straightened out but so far the culprits haven't been made public.

A storm has a lot of confusion and there is always inefficiency as to where to go, are there repair materials, and what has already been repaired. And that's with storms quite minor compared to Sandy and Katrina. Big storms like that would certainly be a "cluster f***".

Some of it's a show concerning utilities being "a good corporate citizen", flooding trucks and manpower out in a show for the public (we're doing everything we can...).

The sleeping in the truck is normal, after 2 days and two nights of minimal rest most people are essentially worthless but the power company will want them out in public for the show of presence. The first two days the public is generally pissed off and the crews get a lot of disrespect, but after four days and without power most of the public is almost kissing on the lips happy to see a crew come around (might not apply to the New York metropolitan area, those people seem to be in a different thought process category in most respects).

A lot of power companies cut down on inventory to cut costs, if it isn't on the lot there's no fix until the stuff is manufactured if conditions are extreme enough.

The public doesn't and won't ever understand the real issues, to them electricity comes out of the wall.

The guy with the rubber gloves: rules are little different everywhere (no matter what you do, someone somewhere is going to think you're a dumb ass for doing it). I think it's stupid to climb poles with primary gloves and sleeves (adds to falling hazard and potential damage to the gloves), but I once saw a lineman from Maryland climb a little guy stub (no energized conductors) to dead end a sole attachment guy wire wearing rubber gloves, sleeves, rubber booties, and a pair of funky rubber covers on his hooks, totally unnecessary here. Apparently that was the rules where he came from. And a fairly recent safety device called a "Buck squeeze" makes it more of a job just to get up a pole than actually doing the work on the pole - especially if it's congested. It's either for the insurance company or to overcome individual stupidity and either way the ideas come from people who don't do the work.

The non union issue probably comes from New York's version of trade unionism. My understanding of New York trade unionism is that no way does anyone do anything which might remotely belong to another trade or there's hell to pay. That probably comes double for "rats" doing anything. Here in California it seems everyone is out for themselves with largely unskilled non union labor (largely illegal) out to undercut everything. If it weren't for safety and other modern ethical issues as well as system reliability concerns there would be dead Mexicans strewn all over the right of way - burn up one bunch, hire another bunch because they might not know what they're doing but they sure work cheap. It's worked for more than thirty years in housing construction because everything can be rebuilt with the true completion costs hidden, doesn't work in the high voltage trades.

[wetibbe]

Two salient issues to addess:

New Yorkers:

I was actually born in Missouri and grew up in Pennsylvania so I was not a new York original. However, I have lived in New York, off and on, since about 1954. The last stint 43 years. Fortunately I live in an upscale neighborhood with many educated neighbors. Over the years, I can attest, from my extensive dealings with New Yorkers of all stripes that generally and commonly they are very polite courteous, helpful, and caring. I'm a pretty big guy - 6'4" = 260 pounds, myself laid back, well spoken and polite. I don't know if this is intimidating but almost universally everyone I come in contact with is friendly, polite respectful. As I grow older they seem to be more friendly and more respectful. Everyone calls me Sir !!! When I am in a shopping plaza, cars stop and let me pass. The ladies smile at me ?? Some speak. When driving 99% of New York drivers are polite, careful and accommodating. It is very rare to see some cowboy take advantage but it does happen very, very rarely. Apparently some of the uncouth low life's in the Bronx and Brooklyn have given New Yorkers in general a bad name.

I will say that Mid-westerners, west of the Mississippi just blow away New Yorkers for friendliness and accommodation, however.

NY Unions:

Over the years I have worked in various jobs both union and non - union, as a manufacturer rep and a contractor. I had extensive dealings with the unions. There are two basic contractors representative membership one in NYC and another in surrounding areas. I belonged to both. If you want to work in NYC in construction you had better belong or you will be impossible. Some unions are clean and some are dirty. Some are infested with corruption and some not. I have dealt with both and those that were crooked universally were caught and landed in jail, both union and contractor. Those that were clean stayed out of trouble. I have found that I could work with the unions and the best bet was to be friendly with them. Some are always up to something untoward, bending rules, feather bedding, playing unsavory tricks. Generally so long as the contractor played by union rules and passed costs along to customers there wasn't a problem.

There were pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages. Generally I didn't have a problem with unions until they went radical outside of the rules or loaded up jobs with excessive personnel. It all depends on attitude. Union employees work from the union hall. They work when there is a job. NO JOB, NO WORK. Some are old and debilitated. They may be assigned to sit a job to the chagrin and detriment of a contractor but they are fighting to surviving and feed as family.

So it's whose ox is being gored.

[ilbegone]

Your thought on Unions is approximate to mine. There are good unions, bad unions, upright unions, and crooked unions. It mostly depends on the leadership of the local.

A lot of people, including pundits, speak of unions as though they were same entity. That's as far from the truth as you can get.

I worked in one construction trade for a number of years and was suspicious of unions, perhaps very anti union. Then I went to work in another trade for a closed shop multi billion dollar corporation. I didn't like having to belong to a union until I realized what that company would do if there were no union.

Then I became radically pro union, which became a part of my divorce and a cause of general burn out.

I was with that company for 15 years before I quit, have worked out of hiring halls ever since, which I like a lot better. I figure there has to be give and take between employers and unions, if one side is all take and no give there is a problem, and I see that in various trades on both sides.

The small contractor, regardless of his predispositions, is right there and is - or should be - intimately involved in the work. The large corporations, on the other hand, are loaded with people who have no idea what the first and second lines do and they don't care. Their purpose it to make the stockholders money while fleecing the corporation for as much as they can, and the board of directors is the worst in this regard. They do it with every company they sit on, many of the boards are interlocking.

Your comment on old men was spot on, see it all the time of oldsters who just need to make it until retirement - but I haven't seen any company forced to hire an old man. There was an old man years ago who used to show up and shuffle around the hall every day wearing Carhartt bib overalls waiting for a job, but he was only hired once that I know of. I overheard the superintendent tell the General foreman over the phone to not spin the man but work him for a couple of days and then lay him off. I've known of a couple of old guys who were kept on for their knowledge when the chips were down, and some who where kept around because they were liked by a GF or superintendent (who might have been the old guy's apprentice many years before), but keeping around old men who can't run anymore is not a practice around here. I worked with a guy who was 70 some years old and still working, said he had retired twice and didn't much like it. He was in extraordinarily good shape for his age and made sure he kept busy because of the prejudice against age, he didn't want to provide any excuse to be run off. It used to be that the young guys would carry the old ones, but that doesn't happen much anymore.

The public service and teacher's unions in California are out of hand. Politically well connected, they have lost touch with reality. In Southern California the Carpenters union has sold out, it seems to exist only to collect dues and cater to illegals as I perceive the Masons, Laborers, and Teamsters have also done. The International Union of Operating Engineers seems to push a thug mentality on their members, but most dirt contractors across the nation treat their employees like shit. The various and sundry IBEW locals have their differing personalities, with inside, outside, and utility locals and hands having different mentalities. The Iron Workers are still nuts, but that's changing.

I don't like that my dues money is given to politicians I neither like nor trust, but I didn't bite on the one sided proposition that would ham string union political donations while letting corporations fund political campaigns.

There are good people and dirtbags everywhere, the perception of which sometimes boils down to local custom and variation. I lived and worked in Missouri for a while, I met some genuinely nice people but there are also some places you just don't go to unless you know someone, might not come back.

I worked around Denver for a while. My perception was of all the people who got fed up with California and moved to CO to escape it, but wound up turning Colorado into the thing they left. However, the ones who were loudest about not liking Californians moving to Colorado had moved up from Texas.

My original perception of Texans, formed by those who invaded SoCal in my trade years ago, was that they were all balls and no brains - screamers and yellers who thought they were being productive by throwing up dirt with running and breaking everything they touched. However, I have been to Texas since and found that the visitors to California were an extreme example of the Texas personality almost to aberration, I met a lot of good and generous people in Texas.

The kids in the trade from Texas now tend to address me as "Mr. (my first name)".

As far as genuine friendliness - there's a big difference between the warm handshake and the look straight to the eyes with "we have to have you over for dinner someday" and a quiet "be there Sunday at 1:30". The first isn't sincere.

And it seems to me that the Bible Belt is no less resistant to temptation or hypocrisy than anywhere else, it's whether or not you make it to church and fall in line on Sunday. Otherwise you don't belong to the community. It was fascinating to me that on so many intersections in Springfield, Missouri there was a used car dealership on one corner (pay by the week, but fifteen minutes late on payment means repossession and the car sold to another sucker) a Boatsman's Bank on another, a church on the third, a Brown Derby liquor store on the fourth, and a titty bar half way down the block. Combine that with the very busy whorehouse just out of city limits (I think the Sheriff had an interest in it) and you have something for everyone - just be on the pew Sunday because you can't be forgiven unless you sin.