Apparently the regulators thought it was mounted on a truck, but when they went in person to inspect it they discovered that he had built some sort of jury rigged contraption to move it around instead. This made it fall outside of their definition of a mobile crane.
The article insinuates that the union was behind it all, but I'm not convinced he didn't just piss off the regulators in this case.
That version of events turns out to be inaccurate:
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Delia Shumway, a professional engineer and the executive director of the agency’s Cranes and Derricks Unit when the Skypicker was approved, emailed me that Chandler confused the Skypicker revocation with a ruling about an entirely different crane.
Shumway wrote, “He’s the one that’s misinformed. The piece of equipment that he’s referring to was not the Skypicker but IBK’s knockoff of the Skypicker. That machine was not in compliance. There was never any argument about that.”
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The article insinuates that the union was behind it all, but I'm not convinced he didn't just piss off the regulators in this case.