wonder why the "plumbers" i know, can do both then...
Posted on 02/16/2010 7:51:43 PM PST by TornadoAlley3
Tim Barker never thought he'd have to live in his truck. Four months ago, the plumber was in a one-bedroom apartment in California's San Fernando Valley, with a pool and a Jacuzzi. Then, on his birthday in October, he and 199 other plumbers were laid off by their union, Local 761 in Burbank. Now Barker's son sleeps on the sofa of his cousin's one-bedroom Hollywood apartment, and Barker sleeps on the roof of the apartment building - or in his 2003 Ford Ranger pickup. "I'm 47, and I've never lived in my car," says Barker, a husky 220-lb. single father with sandy hair and a rapid-fire voice. In January, as torrential rains pelted the streets of Southern California, father and son were sleeping in the truck in San Pedro, next to the Los Angeles Harbor. "We were able to spend four nights in the Vagabond Motel, but for two nights we slept in the car," says Barker. "It was raining, cold, and the cat was jumping on us. We both got sick."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
You wanted change...
” didn’t know there was a that much difference between putting stuff in, and fixing stuff that’s broken...”
Imagine a fully trained, union, construction plumber, he goes to the construction site, runs the new shiny pipes in the ground, and in the studs, and he might even install new and shiny bathtubs and sinks if he is a top out plumber.
Now bring him to your large 60 year old home on a slab and tell him that you are losing large amounts of water but you have never seen moisture, can he solve the problem and be gone by the end of work tomorrow. The guy is going to be clueless about what to do, you and he will look at each other and he will tell you to call a repair plumber.
That is why the construction company itself will call a service plumber to diagnose, locate and repair problems with their own work, once the work is covered and inside a finished, occupied house.
There is a reason that service plumbers can make very serious money in good markets and are valued, the same guy that you see replacing a washer or auguring a toilet may leave your house and his very next stop is to diagnose a problem at a high rise building where he he sells a $20,000.00 job on a very complicated repair, a job that he supervises and performs himself.
“If you don’t have a healthy bank account .. your next step is homelessness.”
Unless you have a good family that can and will take you in. I know some folks don’t, and it’s not their fault.
wonder why the "plumbers" i know, can do both then...
all the plumbers i know can do both... but then again, i don't think any UNION plumbers.
I don’t know how many plumbers you know or even how much you know about the subject of plumbers and service work versus construction, is it a lot?
You know some good plumbers I guess?
Anyone can install. It takes more skill to do service work.
And in the interest of full disclosure, I'm a non union electrician.
LOL, I just now finished with a call from another construction plumber looking for work, all I can tell them is that I will keep their number in case I need a temporary laborer, which in service means digging with a shovel.
Even if I had a call for him to take, you cannot just put a construction guy into a truck and send him on a repair, he wouldn’t know what to do and God knows the mess he could create trying to figure it out, and a lot of my equipment, I would not let one of them touch until I trained them how to use it.
round here, if you call yourself a Plumber, you pretty much have be able to do both or you don't work... same with Electricians. very little install only work
guess i know bout a half dozen and one of my best friends does plumbing/heating/acround here, if you call yourself a Plumber, you pretty much have be able to do both or you don't work... no union required
same with Electricians. very little install only work
but this is the boonies so i don't know from simple union wire pullers etc.
You sound pretty clueless to the whole thing, a plumbing company has to be pretty huge to have two divisions and while the repair plumbers can do the construction work, construction plumbers cannot run a repair truck, as far as unions, I have never seen a union repair shop although they may exist in other states.
Tell me which area you live in and I will call to see if the service companies in your area consider construction plumbers ready to put in a repair truck.
Judging from of some of your statements in that post, you don’t really understand what we are telling you.
Give me the towns that they operate out of and I will call their businesses and check out the situation.
Probably the biggest problem with America is people who thing like you.
i live on Seneca Lake, and like i said, there aren't any big companies round here cause the nearest real "city" is eighty miles away so i don't know sh!t about union labor...
Umm. It was sarcasm, why would I even be on this site if I believed this. Come on....
Much different skill set. Whether it's electrical, HVAC, or plumbing, there is a vast difference between installing and service.you have to understand, the only plumbers/hvac/electricians i know are all self employed or work for small companies that contract work with building crews when they are needed, but work on their own the rest of the time...
What is your deal about union labor, I don’t know anything about them either, I do know about construction plumbing and repair plumbing though and like the electrician is telling you about electrical, they aren’t the same.
Some obvious differences is that a service plumber can make much more money with much less work than a construction plumber, the reason is that repair takes more skill and talent and diagnosing skills and people and sales skills are also needed.
Why work at a job doing the same work over and over and over for eight hours a day every day forever, for an hourly rate if you are capable of turning a wrench a few hours a week and make two or three times the money while also building a clientle for slow times?
Repair people cannot even take on construction work because they cannot run service calls while being tied to one job for long periods, when you are answering the phone live and trying to deliver same day service, you cannot be doing a full time construction project building an apartment complex. You leave that kind of work to the lowest bidders and their young crews of lesser skilled hourly wage workmen.
Which keeps me busy fixing their work.
I understand what you’re saying.
Here's my take on this based on limited information on this guy.
I suspect that he is a Union Plumber just as a friend of mine's nephew is a Union Sheet Metal Worker.
My friend's nephew was unemployed for 6 months when I met him and I asked him why he didn't look for work at local companies such as Wal-Mart because he had the journeyman skill they were looking for.
His answer floored me! Because he was a member of his union which provided him with his apprenticeship and his health insurance and pension benefits, HE IS PROHIBITED FROM WORKING AT ANY COMPANY IN HIS TRADE THAT DOES NOT HAVE A UNION!
In other words, unless his union can provide him with work, he MUST remain unemployed.........
Furthermore, if he is discovered working in non union conditions, his union has the legal right to recover all compensation made available to him in regards to insurance and pension benefits commensurate to the time he is found working in non union conditions........
The nephew Ron is also on his union's pension board and he told me about one employee they discovered working in a non union facility and they were successfully able to assess and recover $18,000 that the union deemed he owed them as compensation for all the benefits and training he had received as a union worker.
the guy in the article is in the union.... are you not reading my posts???
you have to understand, the only plumbers/hvac/electricians i know are all self employed or work for small companies that contract work with building crews when they are needed, but work on their own the rest of the time...
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