**** Part two - “San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge – a lesson to be learned” is here.****
http://www.jeff-goodall.com/?p=12093**** **** *San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge – a lesson to be learned* This is a guest column; ‘Mihael Willman’ is the pseudonym for a concerned Canadian – JG.**** This is part two of a two-part series.**** by Mihael Willman**** “The decision to give contracts to Zhenhua Heavy Industries and other Chinese government-owned companies is not just short-sighted, but potentially suicidal for the future. As long as contracts are given to the lowest bidder, Chinese government-owned companies will easily be able to undercut any domestic company, since profit is not the primary goal. With the financial backing of Beijing, these companies will be able to destroy the capability of American and other Western companies to compete for contracts not only abroad, but in their own countries as well.”**** At a time of government mega-spending, some of it incredibly wasteful, the time may have arrived for citizens and especially taxpayers to get the right to sue the politicians responsible for these decisions. The Ontario Liberal government’s decision to cancel construction of several power stations, under Dalton McGuinty, in the full knowledge that this would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, is a particular case in point. But a more blatant example is the building of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge!**** In a supposed effort to save $400 million, former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the California Department of Transportation (CalTrans) pushed to outsource the building of the suspension span to China, in total disregard for the extent to which American workers would be impacted by this decision. But even worse is the fact that no real savings were realized, as in the end the cost of the Chinese-made section was over budget, while completion was three years overdue.**** This clearly raises the suspicion that Zhenhua Heavy Industries’ bid was deliberately low-balled in order to obtain the contract, in the full knowledge that it could not be completed within those parameters. A clear warning for others, that a low bid from a Chinese company is not necessarily the best and cheapest in the long run.**** It is depressing when manufacturing jobs are out-sourced to low-wage countries, like China, for greater profits. But when governments outsource mega-job-creating projects, then there is something obscenely wrong with the situation. Governments are supposed to be fiscally responsible with taxpayers’ money and should be required to look for ways to save money. Of paramount importance, however, is their responsibility to ensure the economic well-being of their constituents, particularly when it comes to creating or preserving jobs.**** It may be time to altogether do away with the practise of giving contracts to the lowest bidder, a practise which leaves itself open to corruption and manipulation. How many times has the lowest bidder deliberately low-balled their estimates and then had so many cost over-runs that the lowest bid actually ended up being more expensive than the rest? And in cases where the lowest bid remained within budget, one would be justified in asking just where and how the savings were made. Was inferior material used, were workers unduly exploited, were corners cut?**** One question remains to be answered: was the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge built to the required specifications? Concerns were frequently voiced by various groups as to the quality of the Chinese steel and the integrity of the work. The American contractors and CalTrans claim that the issue of quality control was covered by sending inspectors to China, to monitor the work 24/7. However, with at least 3,000 workers to watch, in a 1.2 square-mile factory, they couldn’t be behind every worker every minute. It is also very unlikely that the American inspectors worked the 16 hours a day, seven days a week shifts of the Chinese workers. If they did, their overtime pay must have been astronomical, further depleting the supposed $400 million savings.**** Pencil-pushers and number-crunchers can’t work 112 hours a week without starting to make mistakes. If all that these Chinese workers were doing was painting, then a missed spot or thicker blob of paint, here and there, wouldn’t make too much of a difference in the long run. But many of these workers were welders or sheet metal workers, who need to be alert to what they are doing. Just how efficiently and safely can anyone work whose shift lasts 16 hours a day, with not one day off to rest and gather new strength? No one can claim that Chinese workers or people are so different from the rest of mankind, that they can work like machines and still not make a single mistake! It just isn’t physically possible.**** And the salary for this non-stop, virtual slave-labor, started at $9 a day, then rose to $12 a day, and included a bed in the company’s dorm facilities! No question of any kind of free time or family life here. Clearly no American or other Western worker is prepared to work this way, not unless they want to lose all the rights and protections won over more than one hundred years. From Schwarzenegger’s actions, it would appear that government officials and industry leaders would love nothing better than to turn the clock back to the “good ole days” of the robber barons, to a time when workers had no rights except to work long hours for low pay. And if this can’t be achieved at home, then they can simply continue to send the jobs overseas, while claiming to save taxpayers from higher costs.**** The decision to give contracts to Zhenhua Heavy Industries and other Chinese government-owned is not just short-sighted, but potentially suicidal for the future. As long as contracts are given to the lowest bidder, Chinese government-owned companies will easily be able to undercut any domestic company, since profit is not the primary goal. With the financial backing of Beijing, these companies will be able to destroy the capability of American and other Western companies to compete for contracts not only abroad, but in their own countries as well. Once that happens, don’t count on these same companies continuing with their lower bids. The sky will be the limit if you need to have something done then.**** Now that the new bridge, which is supposed to withstand the most powerful earthquake, has been completed, there are plans to demolish the old one. Considering all the quality issues involved, such as corrosion issues (dealt with at considerable length by the May 18, 2013 Sacramento Bee article – “Corrosion plagues new Bay Bridge span” by Charles Piller) it might be extremely prudent and far-sighted not to go ahead with demolition of the old bridge.**** Despite the quake damage to the original bridge, it is quite conceivable that the old bridge could outlive the new one, despite its projected lifespan of 150 years. Some experts have already reduced the lifespan of the new bridge, and it has only just been put to use. Wonder whether, despite all their protestations to the contrary, the officials at CalTrans aren’t holding their breaths and crossing their fingers waiting to see just how this new bridge will fare when the next, great earthquake hits.**** The circumstances surrounding the building of this bridge should serve as a wake-up call to American government officials and industry leaders that something is drastically wrong. It is very sad indeed, that the once all-mighty American Bridge Company, a conglomerate established by John Pierpont Morgan from 28 of America’s largest steel and construction companies, and Carnegie Steel, responsible for building many of America’s iconic bridges and buildings, has been reduced to the inglorious position of playing second fiddle to an upstart Chinese company!**** It is a national scandal and embarrassment that there is not one single company still capable of constructing projects on this large a scale. John Pierpont Morgan and Andrew Carnegie must be spinning in their graves.**** Republicans used to claim the moral high ground, and to possess a greater national pride. If Arnold Schwarzenegger is an example of the “new” Republican, prepared to sell off the United States and the American people – to the lowest bidder – then the future for the U.S. is very dim indeed.*** * Something has to be done soon, starting at the top. Just because something claims to be cheaper, does not mean it is the best. And if you think you are better off paying less, don’t be surprised at what you end up getting. After all, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.**** See part one – “San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge made in China at what cost?” here <http://www.jeff-goodall.com/?p=12079>.**** ******** As a side note, it is interesting to see just how uninformed comments by many denizens of the internet can be. They blame the Democrats for the decision to outsource when it was Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger who was actually responsible. They blame President Obama, when the decision was made a couple of years before he even became U.S. President and, more importantly, when the decision was a state and not a federal one.**** And they blame the “exorbitant” union wages for sending the jobs to China. After all, how could the unions be so greedy as to demand more than $1 an hour for their workers? If we assume that the Chinese workers got two hours off for lunch and dinner, and I’m being generous with this assumption, then the average Chinese wage on this project was between 64 and 85 cents an hour!**** Dog-walkers get more to walk pampered pooches and even pre-teen or teenage baby-sitters get more per hour. If these cheap wages will sway political decision-makers to outsource future mega-projects to China, then maybe it’s time to charge those politicians with treason and economic sabotage.**** ******** The Sacramento Bee article “Corrosion plagues new Bay Bridge span”, dated May 18th of this year, provides shocking details of the extent of dangerous water corrosion: “The span’s construction violated universally accepted techniques meant to prevent corrosion, they said, and could result in costly inspection and maintenance headaches nearly unheard of for similar modern bridges.”**** ** ** __._,_.___ __,_._,___ -- -- Thanks for being part of "PoliticalForum" at Google Groups. For options & help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "PoliticalForum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
