# Composite crew



## bobelectric (Feb 24, 2007)

Whats' it to you if is in the contract ?


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## RIVETER (Sep 26, 2009)

Bkessler said:


> I am on a Balfour Beatty job which has in the contracts that that all prime contracts must give 8 hours of work a week for the superintendit to clean or do what ever they want. So basically one day a week or apprentice has to sweep all day. I think this is absurd. The job is all union except us I don't see why they dont hire a union laborer full time to clean. Is this to become more common? And what is your opinion on " composite crews"?


I don't have a problem with it...but who am I? There is always a lot of "non-core" work associated with the core work and to my estimation, it doesn't hurt to share in the mediocre work.


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## Widestance_Politics (Jun 2, 2010)

I personally find it to be lame...the general should provide a clean-up crew if that is what he wants...or even hammer down on the contractors creating the mess. Regardless, if it was in the contract, it's too late to avoid it now....


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## davis9 (Mar 21, 2009)

Can't the apprentice just clean an hour and 15 mins a day or something?

Tom


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## CanadianSparky (May 10, 2011)

that is the most absurd thing I have heard. You are guys are electricians not general laborers. Why the eff would a GC want to pay the specialized worker to clean? Talk about bad money management.


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

Well in my opinion this job is no cleaner than any other. And it's my first time ever hearing the term before. I was wondering if this is common or a new trend. It doesn't bother me to much we have a lippy apprentice who we need a break from once a week.


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

CanadianSparky said:


> that is the most absurd thing I have heard. You are guys are electricians not general laborers. Why the eff would a GC want to pay the specialized worker to clean? Talk about bad money management.


Not a GC, "construction management". There is a big difference and the major one is the latter of the two has pretty much zero responsibilities , whether it's a scheduling mistake, missed items on the print or whatever the school has to pay.


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## knowshorts (Jan 9, 2009)

Edge Development?


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## user4818 (Jan 15, 2009)

I have no opinion on this whatsoever, but your rabbit looks pretty cool.


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

Peter D said:


> I have no opinion on this whatsoever, but your rabbit looks pretty cool.


That's Kerby, he's dead. So we replaced him with Polar Pig here.


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

knowshorts said:


> Edge Development?


I am gonna need a hint.


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## knowshorts (Jan 9, 2009)

You said they were a construction management company and I remember you saying you're working at UCR. Edge is huge in the IE and they are pretty useless. Most all their work is PW and your experiences sound like you're working with them.


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## Skipp (May 23, 2010)

Bkessler said:


> Not a GC, "construction management". There is a big difference and the major one is the latter of the two has pretty much zero responsibilities , whether it's a scheduling mistake, missed items on the print or whatever the school has to pay.


 You work with McCarthy Construction too? Because you just described their operations perfectly.


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## piperunner (Aug 22, 2009)

Bkessler said:


> I am on a Balfour Beatty job which has in the contracts that that all prime contracts must give 8 hours of work a week for the superintendit to clean or do what ever they want. So basically one day a week or apprentice has to sweep all day. I think this is absurd. The job is all union except us I don't see why they dont hire a union laborer full time to clean. Is this to become more common? And what is your opinion on " composite crews"?


Well funny but we are also on a B&B job and yes no unskilled workers are aloud on site meaning no temps no labor related workers .

This is not new its been like this for years .

Were a mix of union and non union we can not have any helpers on site .

So we clean up our mess with electricians not a big problem since were getting paid well and everyone is happy to have a job for three years .

What i like about it is less illegals on site a much cleaner job because we have to clean up our own mess.

One plus is we all can communicate and understand each other .

But i dont like the 100 % safety vest !

We are a green clean site we put wood in wood dumpster .
We put metal in one , and concrete in one all trash is separated .

But this is a normal rule on most jobs we do. 

Theres also a fine if you dont clean up your mess in 24 hours and they document with a photo and take that out of your next draw so you pay one way or another .


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## Black Dog (Oct 16, 2011)

Bkessler said:


> Well in my opinion this job is no cleaner than any other. And it's my first time ever hearing the term before. I was wondering if this is common or a new trend. It doesn't bother me to much we have a lippy apprentice who we need a break from once a week.



That is the best job for him then.:laughing:


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## piperunner (Aug 22, 2009)

doesn't bother me to much we have a lippy apprentice who we need a break from once a week.

Well that comment is no problem on our site no lippy here .


At what they get paid its not a issue .:laughing:


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## Black Dog (Oct 16, 2011)

piperunner said:


> doesn't bother me to much we have a lippy apprentice who we need a break from once a week.
> 
> Well that comment is no problem on our site no lippy here .
> 
> ...


I hope it is more then a helper..:laughing:


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## chicken steve (Mar 22, 2011)

Bkessler said:


> I am on a Balfour Beatty job which has in the contracts that that all prime contracts must give 8 hours of work a week for the superintendit to clean *or do what ever they want.*


 
how's about basket weaving then?

~CS~


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## brian john (Mar 11, 2007)

We had a GC try to force us to sweep, I refused as a subcontractor to an EC, it was not in my contract. We were threatened and told to leave if we refused to sweep. We packed up and the manufacture of the equipment stop shipment of materials to the project (we were specified as the installer). Received a call would we please consider returning and they would wave the cleaning rule.

I had not allowed for this in my bid and I have more important things for my employees to do than cleaning anothers trash.


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

Skipp said:


> You work with McCarthy Construction too? Because you just described their operations perfectly.


McCarthy blows too, I've been on a few of their jobs. Every time I see one of their trucks I honk and give them the ol' f/u finger.


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## Bkessler (Feb 14, 2007)

knowshorts said:


> You said they were a construction management company and I remember you saying you're working at UCR. Edge is huge in the IE and they are pretty useless. Most all their work is PW and your experiences sound like you're working with them.


I think Balfour Beatty in conjunction with Douglas Barnhart have a lock out there at UCR. Our DSA inspector has been at UCR for 12 years straight. He's awesome too, he'll go check any detail drawing
and come back with measurements or basically will find out any info we need. He's the buffer between trades and settles disputes. He's basically does the job of the rat faced weasel who's supposed to be our super.


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## Jlarson (Jun 28, 2009)

Widestance_Politics said:


> I personally find it to be lame...


Same here. 

I find the whole "apprentices should be sweeping and digging, and fetching parts..." crap lame no matter what though, apprentices are electricians in training not bodies to push a broom, run crap around or fetch coffee. 



brian john said:


> I have more important things for my employees to do than cleaning anothers trash.


^ This. 

I had a client tell me yesterday we charge to much to be cleaning up our own messes and he'd have one his guys do it. :laughing:


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## user8640521 (Jan 17, 2009)

Bkessler said:


> I am on a Balfour Beatty job which has in the contracts that that all prime contracts must give 8 hours of work a week for the superintendit to clean or do what ever they want. So basically one day a week or apprentice has to sweep all day. I think this is absurd. The job is all union except us I don't see why they dont hire a union laborer full time to clean. Is this to become more common? And what is your opinion on " composite crews"?


i've seen that done when each sub tosses a muppet into a pool after
lunch on friday afternoon, to police the job. some jobs i've been on,
it's done by the trades themselves, so the job is workable for all.

it is usually 'cause the general is a paper pusher who has one 31 year
old "project manager" on site, and actually employs no crafts other than
a staple installer for paperwork, who does double duty as a email spammer,
"documenting" stuff for future backcharges.

or, it could be mccarthy.


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## CADPoint (Jul 5, 2007)

Yes it happens a lot around here. Mostly on the larger jobs, and now on smaller jobs. Donate a body to the trash crew, weekly.

I don't know how the ECs accounts for the persons time, and don't know any of the contractual requirements! 

Most large "named" Contractor's don't even call themselves GC's anymore and like to call themselves Project Managers, Project Coord., or even more lordly names, etc. Frankly they ususally don't even have a utility man on the company's crew...

It's just another way to pay for an expense that the GC doesn't want to pay for anymore!


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## Podagrower (Mar 16, 2008)

The biggest issue I have with composite crew is it becomes an unfair percentage. If it's a job where every trade has the same number of employees on site, and every trade makes the same amount of mess, it's all equal. But if the mason has 40 guys on site, and you have 10, the composite crew is costing him 2.5% of his payroll for the day, and costing you 10%. In addition, I'm pretty sure 40 guys make a bigger mess than 10.


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## troublemaker1701 (Aug 11, 2011)

If it is in the contract man hours were added for the clean up. Your getting paid. So what's the beef?


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## knowshorts (Jan 9, 2009)

troublemaker1701 said:


> If it is in the contract man hours were added for the clean up. Your getting paid. So what's the beef?


It probably wasn't in the contract. I've had a few GCs on large commercial projects try pulling that crap on me. I would always have my guys pick up there large trash (no ko's and strippings) as they worked, but I wasn't gonna have them sweep unless a change order was signed and it would have to be done after hours. They can ask, but if it's not in the contract, I'm not doing it.


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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

Bkessler said:


> . . . He's basically does the job of the rat faced weasel who's supposed to be our super.


Dude, tell us how you really feel ! LOL


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## slickvic277 (Feb 5, 2009)

Bkessler said:


> I am on a Balfour Beatty job which has in the contracts that that all prime contracts must give 8 hours of work a week for the superintendit to clean or do what ever they want. So basically one day a week or apprentice has to sweep all day. I think this is absurd. The job is all union except us I don't see why they dont hire a union laborer full time to clean. Is this to become more common? And what is your opinion on " composite crews"?


I didn't read the thread but I'll give you my 2 cents. This whole clean up thing you're talking about seems to be more and more prevelent the past few years. You see, GC's by nature tend to be scum and as such they try to squeeze every single nickle out of the job (off the backs of their subs) at every chance they get. One of the new things is not to have any laborers on the job, none, nada, zero, zilch.

They're under the impression that they'll save money if they make the sub's clean as opposse to hiring laberors. To me, the notion is absurd especially I believe that it's compounded even more so the bigger the job gets.
Whatever. As we all know, GC's tend to not beable to look past there nose, short sighted.

As for the term "composite crew", I believe you're using it wrong. IME the term usually refers to a situation where two or more trades work hand in hand on work that falls into a jurisdictional grey area. OR when for example a union EC is working under the direction of a non union EC. ie, union labor - non union supervision.

In a nut shell, I get PO'd when I don't see a proffesional cleaner upper on the job.


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## wildleg (Apr 12, 2009)

I agree that this is never fair. I have yet to be on a job where the gc didn't finally get laborers in an then try to backcharge everyone. Daily pictures are the only way I know to fight it.


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## cguillas (Jun 25, 2009)

At the end of the day, I get paid the same amount to sweep as I do to tie corline or pull wires or grab coffee... so I do what my foreman tells me to do. Besides, sweeping is good therapy. Sometimes it's nice to turn your brain off when you're working.


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## NJWVUGrad (May 12, 2011)

On larger jobs I find it works well to hire a laborer directly and invariably he ends up doing ticket work for the other trades or "Construction Manager".

The men appreciate it, not having to go crazy with clean up, sweeping trenching, or any other BS stuff. Especially since they want to hit you with a safety violation for lack of clean-up etc.

Bear in mind I am talking about large, multi-trade, multi-year projects.


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