i was in the martial arts for 7 yrs because i watched one class. can't start a fire without a spark.

I undrestand everything everybodys talking about. I paid of $3000 for welding class at a college in boston .while i was working 40-50 hr week doing demolition. Thought that the classes would help me out in life with a rewarding career.But I cant even get my foot in the door at an entry level postion.

I worked in 1 large unionized plant and several smaller non union shops. In the union shop [Steelworkers] the union did tend to protect slackers and people who made a career of abusing the insurance for "on the job" injuries. The union in some cases didn't even want to represent these people, but were thretened with lack of representatin litigation. I don't think the company begrudged the skilled trades and piece work  employees their wages on the whole, but some piecework jobs were rated improperly, some to the benifit of the worker, others to their detriment. The wages paid to the janitors wouldn't have been soo bad IF THEY HAD DONE SOME WORK. This plant is now closed. Declining market for car & truck frames and the cost of shipping them from our Pensylvania location to assembly plants elswhere were cited as the primary reasons. Of course layed off workers don't want to hear that.