https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/rebuilding-construction-tr...
> need for unions
What in the world? This is the exact opposite use case for unions.
Unions help protect workers from single, dominant/ monopolistic employers where workers have no other options and can get taken advantage of. The construction industry is nearly the polar opposite, where there is almost no barrier for entry and the employment space is very competitive, including the ability to start your own business.
Construction unions would be an absolute nightmare.
Any company that can take advantage of workers will do it, no need for "dominant/ monopolistic".
There is a reason why security measures that put the workers life at risk are almost nonexistent on countries where unions hardly have a presence.
No helmets, no eye protection, no masks when dealing with chemicals, bending metal bars with bare hands, no protection shoes, hopping into a ladder alone,....
Some examples of what I have seen in practice.
Do not know about your country - but over here the construction sites are full of people who couldn't even write the word union (mostly Asian countries like Philippines, Nepal, etc.)
I can also add that Scadinavian countries, and UK tend to be similar to Germany.
Naturally all of them have black sheeps that ignore good work conditions if they can manage to, that is why work inspections are also a thing.
Al
The unions have no standing because theres nobody left to be a part of the union - most people already left for Germany/Switzerland/etc. So Germany is just riding on the EU migration for now - but considering population dynamics - that's a short wave.
What a nonsense thing to say. This is not an opinion most people, and certainly not most economists, would agree with. It's a foundational pillar of regulated free markets.
Moreover in this instance, construction companies are not some sprawling international megacorps, they're locally oowned and operated.
Of course an employee theoretically has total freedom to leave an abusive employer and go somewhere else. But do they have time to search for jobs while working full-time? What if their employer makes them work mandatory overtime? If they don’t have time to search while working, can they afford to be unemployed for a few months? What if their employer threatens them or discourages other employers in the area from hiring them?
It would be great if competition made unions unnecessary, but it doesn’t.
Trade unions tend to have a large focus on training and skill building. Yes they make firing people harder but the flip side of unions can be increasing the average quality such that firing due to quality or skill is less often necessary.
If I have need 10 people and I have a choice between two looks. Pool A is harder to fire and costs more but has a 95% competence rate. Pool B is easy to fire and costs less but has a 70% competence rate.
Setting any contractual rules aside I’m going g to find myself firing from pool B more often, and it is easy to attribute all of that to the rules that make A harder to fire. They are easier to fire (component of variance), they are more likely to be bad (component 2), and because they are easier to fire in going to be more likely to fire than coach for quality (component 3).
They seem to work fine.
(typically, union workers go on unemployment during slow periods; this includes electrical linemen/journeymen, automotive, pipe fitters, etc based on first hand conversations with union tradespeople in my examples)
Housing Supply and Housing Affordability - https://www.nber.org/papers/w33694 - April 2025
The Housing Industry Never Recovered From the Great Recession - https://prospect.org/infrastructure/housing/2024-12-11-housi... - December 11, 2024
APM Marketplace: In an uncertain housing market, home builders face a range of challenges - https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/11/26/in-an-uncertain... - November 26, 2024
U.S. Housing Shortage: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once - https://www.fanniemae.com/research-and-insights/perspectives... - October 31st, 2022
Fannie Mae: The U.S. Housing Shortage from a Local Perspective - https://www.fanniemae.com/media/45106/display - October 2022
The problem with this stat is that the historic data does not support it:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/RSAHORUSQ156S
The supply is just fine, more so with a declining population, how we use housing has changed dramatically.
https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2023/06/more-than-a-q...
U.S. Housing Shortage: Everything, Everywhere, All at Once: that you called out states "While the United States does indeed have a national shortage of affordable housing, every state and city's path to addressing it is relatively unique, and the tools and tactics used to create badly needed new housing supply will have to be tailored."
This is a gross understatement of the issue. The problem is voters. No one will vote in more housing, housing benefits for others or more affordable housing. Because the people who vote own homes and go into the voting booth and protect their own interests and assets: https://www.route-fifty.com/management/2022/08/problem-homeo... . There isnt a law about having to be a landholder to vote but there is a very strong correlation between the two.
Planing and zoning is hyper local, hyper political and very active. This is why mixed use zoning is harder to find, you can't run a garage out of your garage. The is why the "missing middle" is a thing in America. This is why "corporate ownership" of housing wont get fixed (it is a hyper local issue and the people who would show up to vote against it are the same ones whos property prices are being propped up by it).
I mean no large group is a monolith so I'm sure one can find opinions either way among tradesmen. But IMO the problem is so big that it's no longer revenue maximizing for anyone, even the workers. By some measures productivity has actually been declining for construction. If that was good for workers then we should just set them to digging a second Panama Canal with spoons.