User profile: piccolobd

Possibly there were no other reinforcing contractors willing or able to take on this project due to the lack of available manpower. Maybe they wound up with all of the "dregs". Posssibly it was another case of where this publicly held corporation (Perini) did not subscribe to their own corporate policies on drug and alcohol usage. Perini's policy is in black and white and promoted that if your test is positive for drugs or alcohol your employment is immediatly terminated. That was not the case in Connecticut where Perini's General Superintendent tested positive for dope and the head of construction (MK) and the regional VP (SS) overode that policy. That person kept his job and is now in Las Vegas working on City Center. That person, the son of a long term Perini employee, is even attempting to promote himself capable of running more work on the east coast. Another employee in New Jersey tested positive for dope and a former VP and General Superintendent conspired to have him placed on another contractors payroll on the project. That person continued to supervise work on the behalf of Perini all the while getting high on the job. The last we heard he was running work for Kraft Construction in Florida. Perini project staff meetings are conducted with alcohol being supplied by the contractor. Thats great, a bunch of "warm bodies" coupled with alcohol really increases the competence level on the project site! You truly have to experience it to understand and witness the incompetence and lousy work that is performed all in the name of schedule and ego. It is quite possible that Ron Tutor does not know what goes on at these lower levels of Perini but their president MK does, and he promotes it!

Perini has some very fine people working for them and they have a tremendous number of incompetents, but again, their sole purpose is a vehicle to bill the owner. What about the reinforcing subcontractor competence? Where was the competence of the concrete placing crews superintendence to spot problems? Perini has attempted to procure work in difficult locales such as NYC. Do they have prior experience as a NYC building or concrete contractor? No. How about Atlantic City as a concrete contractor? Not for decades. With their own inflated egos they believe and attempt to promote themselves that they are the only ones capable of performing such large and complex concrete projects as the World Trade Center. Many of the large contactors today are not the "self-performing" contractors that existed decades ago, they are "brokers" that subcontract out the risk and liability. Just because you are a large conglomerate does not neccessarily mean you posses talent or competence. Other examples of large and incompetent are Turner and Bovis. They don't perform or competently direct the work but their contracts allow them to manage the work in "reverse".

Its not individuals, its not bean counters or the union guys. You must look at the contractors. Perini wants to be the big guy which advertises that it can tackle all of the large work. How do you accomplish this? By hiring people, large volumes of people. Many of these people have no idea what they are looking at or understand the function of the items or systems being installed let alone understand the basic premise of design. We refer to these people as "warm bodies". There is no test for competence. They exist because the GC is billing the owner, MGM, for these supervisory personnel many times over what they pay the employee. This is ony a part of the way Perini makes their money. Money of these "warm bodies" are incompetent. Many have lost their jobs elsewhere and many have inflated their resumes. Anyway they have found their way to this and other projects.