Ah..well the good thing for me is I'm a certified meat cutter..they are actually extremely hard to find now in Austin. I can literally get onto any store I want in Austin . The thing that sucks is we are ALWAYS short handed .I would love to work at Costco as a butcher but the one is south Austin is never hiring..starting pay is 25 a hr and 1.5 time on Sundays and pretty regular hours there too..At HEB where i work the opening cutter has to be in at 4 AM.yeah...I opened this morning.. I have been awake since 3 am..no fun

Titans you are correct. Down here for the other trades they are not really union. Strong.

I know my state,Tennessee, is a right to work state and they hate unions but the IUEC still holds it down. I think that it's amazing how strong this union has held together.

Keep in mind butcher that the IUEC is going to have a 1:1 ratio policy. So for every apprentice on a job they need to have a mechanic. You can't have 2 apprentices and one jman on a job unless I think certain requirements are meant.

So if there aren't apprentices to be had, a contractor is going to have to just bite the bullet and pay a ton of money to have all journeymen on the job. This is why when big jobs open up we'll get hired in waves to keep the ratio right and save the contractor money.

You are cheap labor as an apprentice, it's that simple. Because of this you will discover apprentices are employed easier than the journeymen are.

I heard that they took 26ish apprentices in last year which was extremely out of the ordinary I think and likely the reason they haven't called us all out yet this year. So don't get me wrong, the demand is still there and it's still a good time to get in, but we don't get hired until all apprentices are working and the books are cleared.

It's possible in a couple years they don't even hold a recruitment because this year and the last few will have had such an influx of apprentices.

Vet also made a great point, lay offs suck and we can only hope this union keeps demand up by not over saturating the work force. It's a growing city though so again, not a bad spot to be in. 20 years down the line though, who knows. By then you would have been smart to have found yourself into a foremanship or service truck.

Either way these big projects can't start soon enough, I'm itchen to get started. I'm also looking forward to a pay raise so I can save up from some property hopefully, renting in Austin is getting absurd.

Ya i have personally known one guy in Union in Austin and he was in the iron workers union...he made decent money however he said its extremely physically demanding and dangerous.

Once we get in we have to fight and claw to ensure that we keep the union true and and hold together what our predecessors have built.

Hahaha hell yah renting in Austin is absurd..I'm paying 1100 for 1 bedroom out here in oak hill and its about to go up AGAIN.

Same thing in Texas. My electrical union is weak as hell and lots of guys leave for open shops because the perks are just as good. However the IUEC is incredibly strong for a state like Texas, that's why it's so appealing to me at least.

Also realize that this unions negotiations are likely driven by the 3 main contractors like otis and are I believe the contract is actually nationwide. This means some of the strength is being derived from more powerful union states and we are seeing the benefits of that. I could be wrong though, and I'm unfamiliar how this overall agreement conflicts with the local agreements.

It's impossible to know until we sit down to read our contract and stuff.

My lease is up at the end of the month and I'm scrambling to find a cheaper roommate situation. I ain't gonna keep burning so much money on rent. It's frustrating.

Yeah. I said screw it when I was in the coast guard I bought a house and just rented it out now I am out I just kept renting it because I am making money, I got lucky and bought it right with the housing rebound.

Maybe that's why the "old guys" on here are very reluctant when answering questions about testing and interviewing. Makes since when ya think about it.

OK fellas I have some free time, so I will give you some info, at least how local 19 works. First off you work for the union, you are employed by the company. For me, there is absolutely no conflicts with the other companies. last lunch I sat in on was 4 guys from Thyssen, 2 from Kone, 2 from Otis. Pretty standard stuff, we are all brothers up here.

Second, because the companies employ you, they actually are the demand in this equation. The union doesnt have much say, other than they have no more,people to be hired, when work picks up. Thyssen takes on 4 big jobs in a month, 2 more than they have manpower for, they go to the hall for people. Now add in Otis, or Schindler, doing the same thing, there is a snapshot of the demand. Does this mean the companies have enough work for this new workforce for the future? Absolutely not, hence the layoffs. Now layoffs are used by the companies,for many things, like was mentioned the end of a large project. The company may have 1-2 guys that are not working out as planned, here is their shot to drop them, without showing cause. Maybe a guy was late, bad attitude, other things that might not show in a file, here is how they move them on. Some guys need a new place to really take off.

So there is a small picture of the workforce. It is the unions "job" to provide qualified elevator personnel for the companies to hire, its the companies job to get enough work to hire them. Hope this clears it up a little, and for the record, I will be in for 14 years in September. I have been laid off once, for 3 days, and was rehired by the company that laid me off. Was a union standard, no temporary mechanics while we have mechanics on the bench. The 2 put in their letters, and until they were hired, all companies dropped their TMs down to apprentice. For every TM dropped, it displaced 2 apprentices. They both were offered jobs, declined them, and the companies could go back to using TMs. Giant cluster at the time, but my own "rainy day fund" allowed me to keep my sanity. Good luck guys, and I hope this thread is not a preview of how much you all will be talking in the field!

I have been trying to get into Local 9 for a few years now, this is the first time in several years they accepted apprentices. its just how construction trends have been going. been really slow here for several years and so they dont want to haire too many apprentices

Thanks silly.

Thanks for clearing some of that up for us, Silly. If you got time, I was also wondering how big crews are typically. Obviously the bigger the project the more guys you might need, but how many guys does it take to install an average elevator system?

Hey silly, how would it work if you're laid off while you are attending school? Would you continue to attend or would you wait until you went back to work?

Typical crew size for new installation is 2 guys for an elevator. Timelines dictate,bigger jobs how many 2 man crews we may send out. Example 6 elevators on a job, each elevator takes 5 weeks to complete, jobs timeline has elevators complete in 6 months. Company may send only 2 crews out, get to the midway point, and remove a crew, or maybe they send out 3 crews, finish the first 3 cars, then leave a single crew for the remainder. Again time available and projected workload sort of dictate how companies run these jobs.

The old school question. As far as I can remember you are allowed to finish school for a certain amount of time during a layoff. School criteria does dictate you are employed by an elevator company to attend school. Top of the head, I want to say its like a 30 day period from layoff notice, until you must be rehired to stay in school. Very possible that this number is different for other states, as my state has an approved apprenticeship program, and so is most likely regulated.

you say that the last lunch I sat in on was 4 guys from Thyssen, 2 from Kone, 2 from Otis. Pretty standard stuff, we are all brothers up here....
wow..in the Otis world that IS a HUGE nono...conflict of interest and all that crap.....Im sure all the other majors ethics brownnosers would be drooling trying to catch you out on that one!!!!

Hey silly, when a new apprentice starts are they usually assigned to new construction or service calls or does it not matter and a luck of the drawl thing?

Usually Newbies start off in New Construction or Modernization. I have not met a Service Helper in a couple of years, they really dont exist anymore, sad.....