A Note From A Skilled Tradesman Employed By Local Government

Greetings all!

My last post was at Christmas, so it has been awhile.

Please indulge me as I write about my experience as a skilled tradesman i n the pipe fitting and heating and air conditioning field. Everything I write in this post regarding my wages are a matter of public record as a government employee, so I am not breaching any "privacy" rules one usually finds in the private sector where employees are warned to keep their wages private or face repercussions by management.

I have been a skilled tradesman for about 15 years. Only about 3 of these years have been with the government. In order for one to become a skilled tradesman, you must attend about 5 years of schooling. My initial education in the skilled trades came from Local Union 19 Plumbers and Pipe fitters, in conjunction Salt Lake Community College, where I was attending school 3 nights a week while under the employ of a Union shop where I was an apprentice worker learning from journeyman workers (workers who have been through the schooling and work hours needed to have obtained the skills required to be self-sufficient in the trade. This is 5 plus years, usually) so I learned my trade from books, and by experience at the same time.

My starting wage as an apprentice Union member working for a Union shop was $8.25 an hour. Out of this wage I had to pay my union dues ($65 a month) and pay partial education costs (the Union paid a fair percentage) and also help to support my family. I took a pay cut from driving a truck making $15 an hour to join the apprenticeship program so that I could insure my future with a skilled trade.

By the time my apprenticeship was finished (I left the apprenticeship about a year early due to life circumstances which have been discussed previously, I will not repeat it here in this post) I was making about $16 an hour. Full health benefits, dental, etc.
The Union contract between the employees and the Union shops helped the employee exponentially by stating such things as what tools the employer must provide (heating and air tools are expensive. Vacuum pumps and recovery machines cost 200-500 dollars) the employee usually supplied hand tools, but when they broke, the employer was obligated to replace them. Most of the employees bought Craftsman tools, which have lifetime warranties, so we would only ask the employer to indulge us with the time it took to go to Sears to replace the tool. This time was granted with no qualms.

After I left the Union (under no duress, my employer at the time convinced the crew to vote to leave...long story) things changed. I worked for employers who did such things as make the begining of the work week a Saturday, so they would EXPECT us to work the weekends with no overtime pay. The expensive tools were now our responsibility to buy. "Oh just put it on our tool account at the supply house" they would say. The employers would then take amounts out of our checks PLUS 5-10 per cent as a "convenience fee" for using the account. So, now you owe money to the employer while trying to make a living for yourself.

Now, this was not true in every non-Union shop I worked for. A couple were decent. Most were not worker friendly. The last company I worked for paid a decent wage on paper ($21.75 an hour) but did the crooked things with work hours, only gave out 30 hour work weeks to the employees. Expected the employee to be available at all sorts of strange hours (sent us home during the day, then called at 6-7 at night expecting the employee to work for straight time)

Now remember. Heating and air conditioning is a SKILLED TRADE. The tradesmen spend a lot of time in educational ventures learning to be a skilled tradesman. As skilled tradesmen, we expect a bit better treatment than that. Or at least I did.

Having tired from the mis-treatment, I started looking at other ways to use my skills. I did not have the money to start my own shop, so I checked the internet and found my local government entity was looking for a skilled HVAC tradesman like myself. I applied and subsequently got the job. The position came with all the tools needed for the job. Full health coverage (though we do pay a large share in premiums). Ample time off (I will discuss this in a moment) 8 hour work days, yet still one has to be available for "pager duty" where you are "on-call" 24 hours a day for a week, about every 3 months. In the private sector, the same pager duty is expected. Many times it was a week every month, the employer did make it lucrative most of the time by offering things like $50 every time you went on call, PLUS time and a half. Many times you got $100 pager duty pay, then time and a half for every call. Pager duty is an annoyance, but in the HVAC trade, it comes with the territory.

When you come to work for the government, you do give up some things. First, the pager duty pay was sub-par to the private sector. We got 4 hours pager pay, then 3 hours minimum per call. AFSCME recently negotiated 10.67 hours compensation for pager duty pay. So now we have a day off without using our own vacation time to make up the difference for the annoyance of carrying the pager. We get 2.67 ours pay as well. So, this is in par with private sector workers, and this is something the employees in the trades asked for and got.

Employees with the local government here earn time off. 4 hours a pay period vacation, and 4 hours in sick pay. Also, there are paid holidays. When not on call, we usually only have to work 8 hours instead of the 10-12 a day in private sector jobs in HVAC trade. These set hours have enabled me to go back to college to further my education. This came with the job, was not negotiated by AFSCME. AFSCME has only been representing the trades here for about 6 mos.

Sounds great, right? And the time off is, especially as a 43 year old working the physical skilled trades job. HVAC trades are full of climbing, lifting, kneeling, being on extremely hot and cold rooftops and noisy conditions. after in the trade for many years, the body screams.

Now let's discuss the pay. I was making $21.75 after 12 years in the trade in the private sector. When I came through the door of government, I lost about$3.50 dollars an hour. My starting wage with the government was $18.28.

I got a couple of raises where I then made almost $19 an hour, BUT THEN the economy tanked and every employee of the local government took a 3% across the board pay cut. Put me back to $18.48, while at the same time my portion of the health insurance raised 10%.

Recently, thanks to the upswing of the economy, we all got 1% back, so now I am at $18.68...BUT my portion of the health care raised another 10%.

Last year, I grossed 38k, after taxes and child support, health care, i brought home about 25k.

My pension will reflect this when I retire.


The point of this post?


Your local government employee is NOT getting rich. We get days off with pay, which is priceless, no argument there. But we are NOT the blame for the so-called "budget crisis" which you hear of. Contrarily, your government employees are usually the first ones to take cuts to insure services for the public are afforded. The libraries, the recreation centers, the garbage pick-up, the snow removal, are all done more inexpensively by your local government as these services are done by a non-profit entity.

The government employees make less to insure the public pays less for the services.

Please think twice and do your research before you blame the people on the front line for the problems some governors say they have.

I am proud to be a government employee. I consider my employ to be a service to the community I live in. I am also a proud Union member. My Union stands to protect the rights of the middle-class that so many literally fought and died for in the generations before me. The Union is not in existence to demand anything but fairness, and fairness is the only "thing" Union members expect. We are not lazy, or spoiled.

Thanks for reading this. I felt compelled to share my story so that the myths can be dispelled about how "the blame" rests with your government employee. Very contrarily, your government employee is very often the solution to keeping the services in your community affordable.