No offense taken, but you can see what I'm saying by on of the above comments, "it's just hustling". Pimps, drug dealers and panhandlers do that sort of hustling, as do convicts in prison to get what they want. Other guys like us hustle in the literal form and we do take pride in our profession. I didn't get into this to make a bunch of money then get a 9 to 5er once the boom plummets. I'm in it for the long haul. Fortunately there's a lot of us folks that don't necessarily need to work the oilfield if we absolutely don't want to. We can do structural, pipe, rigs, ornamental, repair, stainless, brass, mig, tig, shielded arc, brazing, demolition, bridges, gates, signs, fire doors, high rises, handrails, stainless or copper hoods, chimney caps, blacksmithing, or basically any fabrication project you put in front of us. Before this boom, I was doing fine. After it, I will be just fine.
While the work is out there it makes sense to get it while you can. But, my folks taught me the importance of ethical business. They are succesful business owners themselves. Their reputation is such that people don't mind paying more because there is a high level of trust when you have them on a job. It will get done right, no matter if once in a while they have to take it in the shorts. I'm not bragging. It is what it is, honesty.......
Some folks think I get on my soapbox, and whine and brag or whatever. I'm just telling it like it is. Back home it's vast country, and more than one person went hunting or fishing with business partners and never made it home. No body, no murder weapon, only motive. The problem that law enforcement had was that these people were hated by so many folks, there was too many suspects to narrow it down to one person. Back in the day there was a level of respect. If you didn't want everyone to hate your guts, you did right by other folk. I listen to my grandads stories about the way they took care of trouble makers and it makes sense to have that sort of respect among our society. If you stabbed someone in the back then everyone turned their back on YOU! You couldn't get any work because nobody trusted you anymore.
These clowns nowadays can screw everyone in town then leave. They get away with it because nowadays you go to jail for breaking their limbs. It's not worth it for anyone to do anything but flood our courts with a bunch of time consuming crap lawsuits that never seem to have a happy ending. These same clowns disappear for a couple years then come and screw everyone and their brothers again, and get away with it again.
It's in my opinion we ought to put them on a barge to a deserted island, and then we should napalm it.............
By jrw159 
Date 04-01-2008 16:43
Edited 04-04-2008 13:34
I see where you are coming from and can relate as well. I just do not understand how they can do it for so cheap of a price when operating cost is the same whether you charge $50 or $85 per hour. How do they make any money that way? Are they working for the pure enjoyment of working? Here is something else to consider, a construction company from New Mexico, whos name I will not mention since they are from the land of the sun, and If you are on the western slope in the Rifle and Grand Junction area, you know who they are, are partly responsible for low wages. They pay low and bring the out of staters in at $50 per hour tops. Of course I can atest first hand knowledge that this truly is a case of "you get what you pay for." I saw some of the most ragtag half set up rigs as well as some of the freshest newbee's around doing it for those wages. The ones that had nice rigs and were good welders were the type of people that you could tell were probably running from child support or the law, IE hustling.
Pipeliners and structural welders are never going to be considered to be on the same technical playing field as other trades. Unless you weld nuke or aerospace, you're just a second class tradesman, grubbing through the bottom of the barrel for work. Sure, a lot of jobs pay well; but you have to go through hell to reach the golden donut. long hours, on-site, rig work, two weeks gone, one home...it all adds up to a big ol' you might as well not have a life, all in the name of not eating cat food when you're too old to sling a stinger. And just like you said, your out is usually just as big as your in. Doing what you love is one thing. Letting it control you is another.
SD, I don't really disagree with any thing you have said for the the most part of course agreeing to everything would'nt be any fun either. But I see examples of what you are talking about all the time I currently compete against $50-$60 an hour all the time and can't figure out how they make it. With insurance ,fuel,rods, etc,etc. On a real happy note they don't, sure they are around for a while but they never last and in actual fact 70% of my work comes from re-work of their sh#$ and in the end I always make more (another happy thought) and they are in fact my best advertising, so I say bring'em on cause cream always rises to the top if ya know what I mean. Hope those happy notes but a smile on when next you think of it.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
from a very good piece of literature written a couple of hundred years ago by some pretty smart fellas.
your system is a free market society and all things being equal the best will rise.
i believe it is called capitalism.
darren
JRW 159 said:
"...think about when, if ever, you have seen a colored person or a white person picking onions."
Here in Florida it happened often. They were homeless people picked up at the homeless shelter and taken by van to a labor camp. At the "labor camp", they were enslaved at the company store to cigarettes, beer, and crack cocaine until the debt piled up. They were fed bologna sandwiches, and paid a tiny wage that went mostly to paying down their debts at the "company store". They tried to find people with no car who were too lazy to walk out into the wilderness on their own two feet. They finally threw the thug that ran the slave labor camp in prison for dealing crack. I have not read any news about the camp since.
OBEWAN, first let me apoligize for the wording of my statement, as I do know that it happens. I myself happen to be one white guy who has at a few times in my life found it necessary to, believe it or not, pick onions once for about 6 weeks, picked cucumbers and mellons for about a month, mucked mud (concrete),and worked every position on both drilling rigs as well as turnover rigs both derrick and pole, back when oil was NOT worth what it is now, LOL. But my intent was to bring forth the almost unarguable fact that the majority of the "bottom of the barrel" jobs are done by legal migrant workers or illegal immigrants from many differant places. And there is a reason for this, we as a society do not want to do it.
jr. No offense taken. I did not mean to imply that homeless people are the only ones who will do migrant work either.
Go UNION and run the rats out. Next it will be Mexicans with a pipeliner rig working for $40 an hour. Don't think it can happen? It already is.
Guess what happens when your knees go out and you can't keep up with the younger guys. They drop you real fast. No loyalty or brotherhood in the pipe rig trade (if you can call it that). Just a stab in the back and boot prints left on you from getting trampled by the ignorant hick willing to do it for less.
We in the union take care of our members when they are worn out from 30 years in the trade. You guys toss them in the trash. You treat people like a consumable....like welding rod. When it's used up, get another can. I can't even imagine what its like to work the way you guys do. Sad what's happening in the trades.
If only it were that simple. "The times they are a changing". There is a lot more people in this world today than 10, 15,-20 years ago and every one of them are hungry and breeding. They breed a lot more when they can't afford other forms of entertaiment.You think they give a good Rats *&^% about ethics?
Ask some CEO's about it and they will tell you it's great for the economy (all the competition).
It is a fact of life and it's not going to get any better before it gets worse. When I was a kid I heard stories about what it was like before unions and having mobs of hungry people waiting for some one to screw up and get run off a job. My uncle who worked on an assembly line says they were not even allowed toilet breaks.
Very few people are around to remember those things and do not believe you when you try to tell them about it.
All the name calling, Ranting & raving wont stop it either. Staying organized and getting legislation passed can prevent some of it. But we are vastly out numbered.
Male Bovine Excrement!!!
The Unions do not take care of ALL their members. They make side deals for some members and some employers. There are special members who get all the choice jobs and then there are others who don't have the right Rabbi...
They make it impossible for some members to get their annual 1200 hours, (Or Whatever the majic number is) so that they can get their health coverage and other benefits. OOOOOH but the Union always gets the dues.
The posted ideals of Unionism are altruistic and grandiose. In practice, things are quite different.
By ssbn727
Date 04-02-2008 00:47
Edited 04-02-2008 00:53
I agree with Joe!
Case in point:
I was a union boilermaker since 1976!!! Working as a Tube welder before I got sick, and eventually needed a liver transplant back in the nineties... I was only about twenty-five hours short of having enough hours in the quarter which I was working in to qualify for health coverage because I was laid off a few months before... I ended up in an ICU barely alive with bills stacking up the gazoo with no end in sight, and the union just casually told me "Sorry but you didn't have enough hours worked for this quarter to be covered by the health plan" even though they were already deducting my contribution to the plan from my paycheck since the day I started on that job!!! In fact, since I became a "Union" Boilermaker!!! :( :( :(
Anywho, to make a long story short, I ended up having to sell all of my assets, had to become "indegent" in order to receive medicaid coverage for some of the medical bills, and had to wait almost a year and a half before I was finally accepted by Social Security Disability, and another year afterwards before I was granted medicare coverage :(
The only silver lining throughout that whole process was the retroactive payments that I recieved from SSDI for a year and a half of not paying me what I was supposed to be paid... I have to say that it did help me get back on my feet - so to speak!!! I also got all of my money out of the union's annuities and Pension fund because, I couldn't trust them any longer that the money would be there for me later on in my life!!!
I thank God everyday for getting me through that part of my life to where I'm at today because it really taught me alot about how fragile and vulnerable we really are... It also taught me not to ever put myself in that position ever again!!! So nowadays, my money goes to solid recession proof investments and the future is looking bright!!! Why??? Because I no longer trust any organization enough to be there for me if for some reason or another I happen to become ill again except for maybe the Social Security Medicare program which will no longer cover me after five years once I go back to work full time. :( Who knows!!! By then, they may not have any money left anyway by the way the current government is spending away our future retirement fund!!! Maybe by then I'll own another company, and sell it for some decent amount, and retire by riding into the sunset on my family's "Finca" in the Dominican Republic while enjoying the sight of those clouds over the horizon that Joe mentioned in another thread!!! ;) :) :) Self preservation is the KEY these days!!!
Respectfully,
Henry
Male Bovine Excrement... I will have to remember that one.
Some folks have their MBA in MBE. We see a little of it every day.
you want to hear about cut throat. There is a union contractor that under bid another union contractor by cutting the employee's hourly rate by 5%. Take it to the bankits all about the money.
Male Bovine Excrement indeed!!!
While I don't believe any one alluded that Unions would cure all that ails us. Unions are just like so many other man made disasters. They fixed a problem that existed at the time of their inception but open doors for less than scrupulous opportunity seekers to do their evil deeds so to speak.
What I was leaning toward was things like adopting more Codes in to law (like some states have already done) for public safety not to insure some ones wage level.
A master's license is required for A/C, Electrical, Plumbing etc to do contract work most every where (which also opens doors of opportunity for the above mentioned) primarily for fiduciary reason under the guise of public safety (sometimes it seams that way). But it does require the applicant meet standards.
There will always be unscrupulous inner loppers for if no other reason than to just get their foot in the door but mostly to put food in their and their family's mouth and shoes on their feet.
I do not begrudge them the right to do so either; I just feel they should be able to produce a level of quality that is acceptable by all.
By the same token Unions (if properly applied) serve a similar purpose, however most have buckled under and no longer serve the original intent. Sometimes you need to clean up and do maintenance on the tools you have in your bag rather than go out and by new ones.
"Here in Florida it happened often. They were homeless people picked up at the homeless shelter and taken by van to a labor camp. At the "labor camp", they were enslaved at the company store to cigarettes, beer, and crack cocaine until the debt piled up. They were fed bologna sandwiches, and paid a tiny wage that went mostly to paying down their debts at the "company store". They tried to find people with no car who were too lazy to walk out into the wilderness on their own two feet. They finally threw the thug that ran the slave labor camp in prison for dealing crack. I have not read any news about the camp since."
I'm 5th generation native of FL. I don't remember this story. Where and when did this happen? I'm guessing south FL sometime in the 80's?
"They finally threw the thug that ran the slave labor camp in prison for dealing crack."
Regarding When did this happen?
It was a front page story several times in the Jacksonville Times Union sometime between 2004 and 2006.
By Root Pass 
Date 04-02-2008 21:54
Edited 04-02-2008 21:59
