[poopypoopington]

Say you're laying rail track. It will be used for 50+ years. Better to lay it once, relatively slowly, and well than to do a shoddy quick job and have to repair it every 5 years.

Perhaps another argument for the plodding, methodical 55 year-old union guy's way of working?

[chrisseaton]

But the union don't recommend things for engineering reasons though, do they? That's not their remit and they don't represent users of the railway or future maintainers of the railway. They represent the employees today.

In fact the incentive of the union is shoddier work so they have more work to do late to replace it.