Before I respond, what area of Illinois are you living in? I can tell you about two locals in Illinois, Locals 60, and Local 1, but I can't tell you anything about 363 because I've never worked out of there. I'll check the post tomorrow.
I don't know what the union side is but the differences in shop and field work are pretty consistent.
SHOP=Same place from week to week
FIELD=The JOBS MOVE and you move with them if you wan't to work.
SHOP= Welds are usually easy to get to.
FIELD=Usually Hard to get to. (Except for water wall tubes)
SHOP= I have made up to $15.00 in a shop (Welding Tubes)
Field= I have made $23.00 + Perdeim (Welding Tubes)
SHOP= Due to a consistent work environment, the shop is usually safer
FIELD= Not as safe but this could vary with the contractor.
SHOP= Routine work (Most of the time)
FIELD= More variety
SHOP=Sleep at home
FIELD= Sleep somewhere else
If you have been doing boiler related work in the shop such as waterwall and superheater fabrication, just think of it as the same with your welding machine moved 3 floors away, someones helper setting your machine to gouge while your putting a mirror welded root pass in a tube and laying in some boiler dust while its 120 degrees since the other boilers around your are still running.
As far as the work goes I prefer the field but I hate being away from my wife and kids now so I try to stay home.
I live in the southeast so the unions don't have much work here but in other parts of the country they keep busy.
Gerald Austin
O.k....I'll respond even if I don't know where you're living at...Apprentices start at 70% in all Illinois locals if I'm not mistaken...That means you start out 30% less than journeyman wage. In Chicago (Lu 1), the scale right now with the "layoff pay" on the check is 34.35 an hour....Morton(ie.60) is 27.43 and I don't know what East St. Louis is per hour.... Everyone has a full benefit package, dental, medical, perscription, and vision care...The contractors' now pick up 100% of the total health and welfare...
The demands of the work go just like this...When you get on a 7-12's job for a while, i.e. a couple months or more, you better be able to perform when your ass is dragging. Not much different than when a powerhouse comes down in the middle of the summer and the contractor wants the men to work until the repair is done, that sometimes involves 24+ hours of continous work to get the unit back up and running. You can't be fat and be a boilermaker either..I'm right at about 220 and I'm trying to lose a few pounds so I can fit in the manways a little better. You can't be claustrifobic, or have a fear of heights...Some of the "holes" we work in have accessways not much larger than the top diameter of a toilet bowl, with not much more room inside. Then we have the high work which can require being out on structural steel 300 to 600 feet in the air...which doesn't sound like much, but believe me, 600 feet in the OPEN AIR is a long way up.
These days, the safety in the environment that we work in is a lot better than most think...OSHA is now a big help, and the contractors know that if they have Union Boilermakers on the job that, odds are, they won't have many, if any comp cases...Matter of fact, the Boilermakers' trade has one of the lowest costs of workmans comp insurance for the contractors. We've proven time and time again that we can do the job on time, on budget, and with the fewest amount of injuries...Our safety, quality, and production are as good as, if not better than any other trade...When someone just wants a job "done", they call just any joe blow, but when they want it done fast and done right, they call us.
Now to the enjoyable part....Nuclear Industry...It's not a prerequisite that you HAVE to work Nuclear, but you'll miss out on a lot of money...and you better be a welder if you want the good jobs..In two refuel outages, I made over 35,000...This year I'll make $120,000 easy...That's the great part...they money...I didn't have to stay away from home hardly at all...I think I was in a hotel for 23 days total...You can work all year practically if you do it right, but you can work 2000 hours in 8 months and take the rest of the year off if you want...If you have any more questions, let me know and I'll answer them for you....
Regards,
John
Do you know what the scale is in Ala, Miss, Tenn areas?
Quite a few SCR's were built here in Mississippi (In union and non-union shops) and I'm pretty sure the shop labor/Burden/Overhead rate did not add up to the above rate.
I wonder if the cost of living is that high compared to the rest of the country? I worked in a power plant in downtown Chicago a few years ago and didn't think it was double.
I've filled out an application for the boilermakers down here but have only received a response that I was on the list indicating some type of status.
Does the rate go up for Nuke work? or do you just get more hours?
What does a laborer make in the union?
Thanks for any info. I tried talking to a couple of guys when I was working in Ohio last year but for some reason information didn't flow to freely.
Gerald Austin
Gerald, to start off with, the scale down there is about or a little more than half of what Chicago makes an hour....Last I heard it was somewhere in the neighborhood of 19to 20 an hour, but it depends on the local, the contract, and if they pay their welders more...I'm sure from the sounds of it you are in the lottery pool for the apprenticeship... you're probably an "A" pool candidate being that you have certifications... The rate does not go up for nuke work in Illinois, I can't say with authority that it doesn't in other parts of the country. Lots of hours in a 3 week span....sometimes 7-14's, 7-15's. Laborers are a completely different International Union. If you have any more questions, don't hesitate to ask....
Thanks for the response. I may have some more questions.
G Austin
only problem is you have to be 3 or 4 generations family to get into the locals in Ill. or go the NTL route.
I am not sure about Local 1, but in Local 107, apprentices start at 80% and advance 5% a year. The journeyman scale in 107 is around $26.oo per hour.
I am a Boilermaker in Good Standing with Local 107 out of Waukesha WI. While I am presntly employed as an insturctor with a techincal college teaching welding at a large manufacturing facility in Western Wisconsin, I have many good friends who are still working in the trade. I do know that getting into Local 1 in Chicago can be hard, may I suggest you try applying for the apprenticeship program in 107. They regularily dispatch people to work out of Local 1. I think boilermaker has pointed out most of the negatives of boilermaking, there is one more. While boilermaker is able to stay home and work which he is afforded because of his location, most boilermakers have to resort to a lot of motel time. Some of the parts I loved best, were the comaradiry, the excitment of tearing apart a boiler and refurbishing it, (satisfaction) good money, and time off when you want. I was earning around $50 - $60K working 6 months a year spending 3 of those months in a motel. If you want, email me and I will try to answer your questions.
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