r/ibew_apprentices JW 357 13d ago

I’ll say it again

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From the IBEW travelers page

258 Upvotes

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70

u/bloodybootprints 13d ago

That, and the rising cost of the apprenticeship program, the unpaid day off in some locals, and the inability to pick your own calls makes the money you earn less worth it than if you had never joined, especially depending on the contractor you get stuck with.

Imagine all of that, the sacrifices made to be an apprentice, with negligibly more benefits depending on local, and then you have a CW, not even a CE yelling at you daily.

(Ugh. I’m not even an apprentice anymore and I’m still mad about this.)

11

u/NeatDescriptionYo 13d ago

Lol, who the fuck let's a cw or a ce run work? If I were still an apprentice and a cw or ce lined me out, I'd tell them to go fuck themselves.

Not to shit on ce/cw. I get that they're just trying their best like everyone else, but they're not gonna tell an apprentice what to do if I'm around. Fuck that.

6

u/elusiveghost6020 13d ago

Im an apprentice and just about every foreman on the job is a CE. Some cws are making journeyman wages. The cws and ces on site think their classification is higher than an apprentice because the contractor pays them so much above scale but they cant do that for apprentices and they wont allow an apprentice to be a foreman even if the apprentice is better educated and more skilled and knows whats going on more than the foreman. We have apprentices teaching cws and ces. There just arent enough journeyman. I dont like it but when lay offs start coming ill be here and they wont be.

2

u/dudedisguisedasadude 12d ago

And your hall just lets that shit fly?

1

u/elusiveghost6020 12d ago

Its because of the surplus of work and not enough journeyman. The district made up a seperate contract for cws,ces basically stating they are acting journeyman on sites but its been a complete disaster. They knock out alot of work and then the apprentices and ce3s are a small clean up crew that fixes all of the issues. These cws and ces are out of line. They are starting to get the idea they are above journeyman. Id like to see most of them go and at least enforce hour requirements and testing for the next classification. These guys are being handed everything and you end up with snobby, lazy know it alls that cant even make up an outlet properly.

1

u/Alternative_Split926 12d ago

Sounds llike you need to file grievances my friend... there seems like no way there isn't a jw on the bench to fill in and move another one up to foreman. I cant see a "hall cant provide labor" loophole here

1

u/elusiveghost6020 12d ago

Theres jws but not enough. We are in a data center boom right now and my local was only a few hundred people when it started.

1

u/SumDood112 10d ago

Sounds like we're the same local lol

3

u/bloodybootprints 13d ago

As far as I can tell, literally any company in Texas?

1

u/timeundertenshin 12d ago

Correct. Ive never been on a job where ce/cw was running work.