In general that's true, but perhaps not when it comes to construction, especially for large public projects. In Europe, the goal of such projects appears to be to complete the project and have the thing that they're building. In the US, at least as of late, it seems like the goal is to pay various interest groups in money or patronage, and whether the thing gets built or not is only of a secondary significance.
My university has an auto shop for this very reason - at a certain size, it makes more sense to care for your own fleet than it does to contract it out, even though the auto fleet peeps have approximately zero overlap with educational goals.
In the best case they certainly would help workers be able to afford the homes they built though. My friend was telling me today that his grandfather came out to California to work as a farm hand, and used that income to buy a home in the area. Imagine doing so now.
I really wish people would be more specific when they complain about "red tape." I think a lot of people just use red tape as a generalization that means "every government rule and formality that I don't like." Exactly which "red tape" is adding how much cost to projects? Arguers should enumerate them and explain why each cost is unnecessary.
That is a lot of work. It is easy to complain about 'red tape', but ever single line is there for a reason. So the real arguement is what isn't good enough to be worth the cost. I don't want a building to fall, but I also don't want inspectors to insists on additional bracing where the isn't even a stress point (which I have seen)
I live in Wyoming. We don’t have many unions. The cost scourge is still there due to red tape and general fuckery.