The Last Bastion of American Labor

Everyone who lives in Northfield or frequents Willow Road knows that construction has been in progress up and down the busy artery for many months now. Little progress is visible and even harder to see is workers out there doing what their titles would imply. A recent article in the Chicago Tribune voiced the frustration and extended news of a delay. Link here. The lack of speedy renovations of roads is certainly a state problem, if not a nationwide problem. It is an American side effect to one of the few job fields we have yet to outsource but I wonder if the results of doing just that would yield a more expedient result.

One of my guesses as to why road repairs seem to last forever is because they have to constantly be done. The companies that are contracted to re-due the roads are payed not by quality but by hour or amount of surface laid. There is no inherent incentive to paving a street to last when they can get a future contract and earn another gig. In the article they state that the Illinois Department of Transportation "has agreed to add funds to the $963,000 project to pay workers' overtime to finish more quickly." Therein lies the second reason the workers take their time, the more the project gets delayed the more overtime is handed out to hurry the project up. Now in the article it is reported that the delay is caused by the discovery of a power line but it seems to be a vague, weak excuse when they simply needed to widen the road. 

I'm sure I will draw the ire of many but I simply believe that if jobs like paving roads could feasibly be outsourced, the results would be cheaper and faster. I'm not necessarily advocating that but as a society it seems we are either indifferent or approve of outsourcing in order to  maximize profit and efficiency. Public services contracted out should be treated equally then as I see it. Unions are great things but if a group that is unaffiliated with a union offers to do the job of paving the road while halving the time and cost, it seems like an easy decision to taxpayers. Perhaps the blow-back from jobs loss would be too great though. Obviously outsourcing on that scale is virtually impossible but it is worth discussing the nature of a system that has survived our tendency to ship jobs away and perhaps has contributed to the debt accrued by many local governments.