Posted on 12/11/2014 3:45:29 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Frank Walsh still pays dues to the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, but more than four years have passed since his name was called at the union hall where the few available jobs are distributed. Mr. Walsh, his wife and two children live on her part-time income and a small inheritance from his mother, which is running out.
Sitting in the food court at a mall near his Maryland home, he sees some of the restaurants are hiring. He says he can’t wait much longer to find a job. But he’s not ready yet.
“I’d work for them but they’re only willing to pay $10 an hour,” he said, pointing at a Chick-fil-A that probably pays most of its workers less than that. “I’m 49 with two kids — $10 just isn’t going to cut it.”
Working, in America, is in decline. The share of prime-age men — those 25 to 54 years old — who are not working has more than tripled since the late 1960s, to 16 percent. More recently, since the turn of the century, the share of women without paying jobs has been rising, too. The United States, which had one of the highest employment rates among developed nations as recently as 2000, has fallen toward the bottom of the list....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Then get an education and a job before you have children, you idiot. Don’t depend on fast-food joints for your livelihood.
He’d rather blow his mom’s inheritance on IBEW dues, waiting for a job that’s never going to come. Which is why the NYSlimes picked him to interview.
How much does that cost?
In the UAW plants, you only pay a percentage of your check (2.5 hours pay per month) when you are actually working.
When I got laid off I was determined to find any work I could, just to avoid becoming used to laying about at the house. I also had to find something with benefits so my wife would be covered in case she fell ill. I tried several temp jobs in the hope that I would be taken on full time but never got any offers. Each time I took a job it messed up my unemployment benefits and I would have to reapply. I was actually losing money by working. Then I took a minimum wage job at a supermarket, hoping they would see that I was a hard worker and would be taken on full time. After talking to other hard workers who had been there for years without ever getting an offer and getting my hours cut I quit to concentrate on finding something better. They reported that I quit and the department of labor cut off my unemployment completely. Luckily I found another temp job that led me to a good full time position wit excellent benefits so the crisis is over.
We were lucky. Our house and everything in it is paid for and we had enough savings to tide us over until I could find another full time job. If I met someone today who was dependent on unemployment to pay the bills or buy food I would advise him to stay at home, collect the check and only take a new job that offers you something full time with benefits. Because of all the screwups and finally being cut off completely I ended up getting 2 government checks in my 20 weeks of unemployment. The government actually punishes you for trying to better yourself.
An electrician is not an uneducated boob.
He is a skilled professional that leans heavily on math and physics.
That used too be admirable, but now they want you to have a farking masters degree.
What’s the guy to do?
Get a loan to get a degree so he can get a job doing what he already knows how to do at age 54?
“Unions kill jobs. Same with the minimum wage”
He pays dues to the organization that restricts him from running a free advertisement on craigslist to obtain work.
I wonder if the guy is actually doing work off the books but smart enough not to advertise it.
Yeah, ‘Call the Hall’ has this guys name all over that old term!
MW increases screw people on fixed incomes.
Here’s something that doesn’t add up about Walsh’s story. He’s a union electrician, living in Annapolis, MD, 40 miles from the one city in American that never experienced the recession—Washington, D.C. Thanks to Obama’s spending orgy, Washington remained a boomtown while other regions were experiencing double-digit unemployment. What prevented him from transferring his membership to the D.C. local and going to work on the scores of projects in/around the nation’s capital?
Likewise, there has been a huge demand for electricians in the oil patch in North Dakota. Non-union jobs, but average pay is $90,000 a year for unskilled workers. If you can’t find work as an electrician in Annapolis, relocate to where your skills are in demand, and burn your union card.
I was unemployed on two different occasions after retiring from the military. Despite having a pension (and health care), I made finding a job my new job. My efforts paid off and I was back at work within a month (the first time) and four months the second time around.
Of course, the unmentioned “factor” in the story is Barry Zero. He oversaw the dismantling of our economy and created the environment where millions of men have given up on finding work.
A colleague of mine who has spent most of her career in workforce development says the average job lost during the Obama Recession had an annual salary of $70,000; the jobs created since then pay an average of $27,000 a year.
“MW increases screw people on fixed incomes”
This guy sounds like he is fixing his own income.
There are probably plenty of opportunities for him to earn money, just not the high dollar - low output union gig.
Excellent info, totally believable stat, and the term "McJobs" hasn't been seen in the MSM since Jan 09. Now they want to portray "fast food" as the middle class career aspiration.
You must be thinking of an electrical engineer. Most electricians spend most of their time pulling wire and wiring receptacles especially if they are union.
I've been doing industrial electrical maintenance for thirty years. Most "electricians" couldn't figure out how to repair a drive or program the simplest PLC. Set up a motor control center, trouble shoot an emergency stop circuit.
These guys are way overpaid. Those that have their own business are a different story. At least they have to be able to estimate a job.
Understood but setting up 3 phase power is not for wire pullers.
Actually it's pretty easy. There are rules to follow. I don't think the average electrician would have a clue how to balance the loads and calculate the currents in a delta as opposed to a wye configuration. Most of them have engineers do the planning and they run the pipe and pull the wire.
What do master electricians do?
Watch the wire pullers?
It's called electrical theory for a reason.
It really ticks me off when the electrons run through me rather than through the carefully designed circuits.
I've designed control systems for advanced HVAC systems since 1979. I am not an accredited "engineer," I am a technician. "I am wire puller."
Unthinking people have a natural and foolish tendency to blame the victim.
“Your house was robbed and you live in that neighborhood?” “You were mugged while out walking at 2am?”
Researchers think this is because people like to believe that there are rules to life, and that all it takes to be safe is to follow those rules and you’ll be OK. So whenever they hear of someone going through hard times, the first thing they do is figure out which of their imaginary “rules” the victim violated.
In the case of this out of work union fellow, I’m sure he had rules he followed too. Probably one of them was you could make a living wage and find work if you joined a union.
So just like he had an imaginary rule to follow to feel safe, other people have their imaginary rules, too.
If people don’t wise up and take a skeptical look at their rules, it’s almost certain that in our modern, miserably fast changing world, they will one day get dealt a major dose of reality, and will be left saying like so many before them: “But I did everything right!”
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