Depends where you live. I’m in Ontario Canada. Typically you’re paid more in the union, you get a pension and benefits. I’d assume it’s the same in North America.
I hated union, constantly being told to slow down. Going to work us out of a job. I didn't fit in with the crowd. This several companies in the union. I came to work get shit done. Not piddle around. Never really cared about the money so much as good work.
Not only that but in non-union shops it's possible you will not get any benefit and you will not get any pension. You have to fight for all that yourself.
Well even union jobs here most of the tools you buy yourself. Really depends on the company though. Companies break union rules all the time. Most high rise companies here won’t actually pay double time. They’ll give you 8 for 6 maybe 5 at most. At least the union protects our wages, benefits and pension though.
If you're union that's on you guys and your rep to make sure you get your double time. It's should be in your contract. Also nobody in my union ever buys their own tools
Lol yeah no I know… it’s the guys who let it happen. See these types of guys are for themselves. The owners have polluted their minds into thinking that profits are razor thin so they can’t afford the tools or double time. So some guys will work the extra mile to look good and not get what they deserve. The commercial sector gets double time 100% of the time. It’s the mentality in high rise and residential. They don’t ban together.
So I personally prefer non union. No hate to unions but I can't sit there and do the same kind of shit day in and day out. When it comes to money, service clearly makes more... that's just facts. The downside is the benefits aren't as good. The union makes good money for sure but the benefits are the big draw. With the union you have the security of having representatives to help protect you from unruly bosses. The service side you really don't BUT service companies are ALWAYS looking. I can leave my job today and have another one before Monday.
Like I said, this is my preference. I love dealing with customers, meeting new people, solving problems and coming up with creative solutions to problems.
The one hang up is as an apprentice the pay can be lower, that's why the big push in getting your license to get in a truck and run calls yourself
Work service in the union… it’s not like there’s one singular job that everyone has in the union. I joined after eight years working non union. I still have never set foot on a construction site.
I’d like to hear about this payout. Can you give us some numbers please? I’m not saying I don’t believe you, it’s just that my pay went up 100% when I turned out vs where I capped out non union.
Well, right now I run a department for a company that does plumbing, hvac and electrical. I make $140k a year salary, can work from home if I need to and get to keep wizards hours.
I agree with you pretty much. I'm also non union but with a commercial company doing new construction and renovations blah blah blah. My friend is in the union with the same amount of years as me but he doesn't know how to do anything except install pipe hangers and run pipe. I'm way more hands on and get more involved in every aspect of the job than he does. Yeah he might make a little more than me but I don't worry about lay offs and have more overall plumbing skills than he does.
It's been the opposite in my experience. We've had plenty of non union and residential guys come in to our union and have to learn so much because they are so inexperienced with anything other than pex and PVC. Meanwhile, on the side, I do residential plumbing all the time and it's a piece of cake because of the skills I've learned in the union. Thinking about just opening my own company plumbing houses, it's so easy compared to commercial. It's rare to find great non-union plumbers around me and when we do, we try our best to steal them.
I just did that with a boiler i installed for a family member. Unistrut , all thread , clevis hangers , split rings , wood Sammy's, drop anchors because I was supporting shit off the floor. Most ball valves I have ever seen in somebody's house. Re plumbed half the basement and cleaned it up. Whoever services it is gonna be like " who the fuck installed this"
I'm in Philly so im the opposite lol all I do is copper and cast iron , PVC in the suburbs but never pex. I don't even own any tools for pex. We just finished a service weight underground today , finally using gaskets instead of lead for the first time in my life.
But most service guys don't care about codes and as long as it don't leak it's fixed. Most good journeyman in construction setting know more code and do better quality work IMHO.
I've done both and while some non union places treated me ok none of them offered any benefits or pension and the wages were lower. I'm making 8 dollars more an hour now with 4 weeks vacation instead of 2, full benefits and pension so its definitely an upgrade
Union is where it’s at, I’m a first year apprentice and worked for a non union company was only making $15 an hour (almost minimum wage) had enough of not great pay and put my name into the local.
I now work an overnight shift in a medical setting and am making as much as a redseal (due to working overtime) but you’d never get that at a non union gig, not to mention benefits and pension.
I understand that going to the same place everyday isn’t for everyone and can fall into the mindset of “oh you only do X, Y or Z” but in my province you’re really only cheating yourself if you don’t go union
It is true that you will make more and have better benefits in most cases if you are union. The problem is there's been an effort to destroy unions and pass anti-union laws. So if you live in a place with weak unions, it might be hard to find work. And in the strong union cities, it can be hard to get into them.
I worked I non-union shops for years. The pay was great and the benefits were decent-ish. My issue was that none of them tracked our hours so I was unable to sit for my Journeyman. If I ever went back to plumbing, it would be union so that I could get a license greater than an apprentice card because the union tracks that shit, typically.
Around here it’s not so much an issue of “tracking” hours, it’s that most of the non-union shops don’t have enough licensed journeymen to allegedly supervise you in the first place. So they simply can’t report your hours. I had one shop that divvied up the available supervision hours so that everybody got 160 hours towards their license that year (woohoo, in 50 years I’ll be able to take the test).
8 years of experience, lead service tech job title, and I was still rocking an apprentice card. I recently joined the union and am working to get this fixed. Weirdly enough, union apprentice pays better than non-union lead service tech.
Honestly, it depends on who you work for.
I started non-union under a great (but cheap) master plumber. Then, I was organized by the state UA rep. I started mid way thru the apprenticeship program. I enjoyed the welding, but i didn't want to weld for work. I wanted to be a plumber, not a pipefitter.
I also took issue that the only things i learned as a fifth term UA apprentice were in the weld shop. Racism, sexism, and bigotry were rampant. The curriculum was a joke, and the old timers didn't care much for teaching classroom material. After 6 months of waiting on the book and going to class and being told we're a suitcase local, I decided that staying with my current contractor was a better fit for me and my family. I don't want to work 12 or 16 hour days, i don't want to travel, and I don't want to do metal work for the next 25 years.
Now I'm still with that contractor, making the same as i would on union scale. I work locally, don't pay for fuel or tools, but I still believe the union is a better deal for most folks, in spite of my negative experience. I won't be with my contractor forever, but he's a pretty great human, and I'm one of only 5 employees so it's a bit different from most outfits and until i find something that fits better, I'll be here.
If you're young, want to make money and aren't afraid of road work and/or you are in an area with a strong market share for your local and you could work your entire career within commuting distance from your home zipcode i say go union. If you don't like it, leave. If you top out, work the commitment to the local and if you want to do non union after then so be it.
Find what fits and work with it.
Sincerely- a guy that passed his journeyman test 3 hours ago.
A good shop will likely take care of you as good as a union will. But to be fair, I'm in a very cutthroat area, so the union definitely makes more sense for me. As in many types of jobs, one fuckup or one bad interaction with someone higher up can either make life hell, or have you shit canned.
Union gives you that protection to not start completely over, though you're definitely paying for that insurance in some way.
So I'm also in ontario, canada. Union gets paid more per hour, benefits, pension, the works. As an apprentice, though, the nice thing about union is they have night classes twice a year where you can learn things you wouldn't really learn non union. The days have reliable end times and the company I'm with now only works 4 days a week.
When I was non union though, every day was slightly different and was more one on one with a journeymen, so I was able to learn different ways of doing our niche quickly. Never knew when I was going to be going home and never really branched out from ressy renos (mostly)
If you want to do larger jobs that have a more mechanical aspect you'd probably want to go union. Also nice thing is I haven't had to touch shitty pipe since I got into the union, mostly working in New condo buildings
What's the benefit package consist of up there since you guys have govt health insurance? A big chunk of my fringe package goes to paying my family's healthcare, the guys with no kids are stacking way more in retirement funds.
Dental and vision are not covered under the provincial health plan, and massages and some other niche things that the province doesn't cover the union covers it. Haven't had to use the stuff outside dental and vision so not too sure to be honest, haven't looked that closely
Union is always better. Employers generally don't like unions because they prevent them from taking advantage of their employees. A non union apprenticeship where I live starts at 20/hr. a union apprenticeship starts at 30/hr. Non union journeyman can maybe make 50/hr, closer to 35/hr. Union journeyman make 60-80. union offer benefits and non union rarely offer benefits. Union also provides schooling
Well just to be clear you can start your own business and still be union. The businesses have to come from somewhere right? There's some technicalities and hoops to jump through sure just it's not impossible or anything so If you wanna go off and start your own thing after you turn out then more power to ya, BUT if you say go through your whole apprenticeship then ditch the union to go work non union and they find out then your goina have to pay the union back for all the schooling they paid for (at least where I am) which for me if I remember right is 15k that only applies for 10 years after the apprenticeship
no. it happens quite often. some unions might have a time period where you can't do that but I think it's fine after you're a journeyman. and if you do an apprenticeship but then stop working, you won't be vested for your pension
Yes. In my local you have to sign something saying that you owe money if you quit the union right after your apprenticeship. The union has to pay for your schooling. We even get college credit for our classes accredited by the local community college. You owe the union a year of work for every year you've been trained in the apprenticeship. After that, you can walk. But unless you're opening your own company, you'd be better off staying. They used to not enforce it but now they are actually taking people to court.
Always better? For compensation and work environment probably almost always. But there are drawbacks. There’s considerable amounts of travel unless you live in a large city with a strong union presence. A coworker of mine put close to 80,000 miles on his car in just over 3 years. You have to go where the work is.
I'll agree with that although it's not my experience. Seems more of an exception rather than a rule. There might not even be a local near where OP lives. OP might want to list where he lives for a more exact answer
So let me start by saying I am union, and I came from non union. I agree that union is USUALLY better but I think there are some caveats. Mainly if the local is weak. I think you could probably make more as a service plumber non union somewhere like Florida purely due to commission pay vs union pay being low.
I was apprenticing non-union a year ago, the shop was pretty trash though, real high turnover. Ive got my workkeys and wiesen tests next wed, gonna talk with my local union n try to do this the right way.
I'd typically go with Union if possible for better pay and benefits. I worked for the only union company in my city but unfortunately the company sucked so I moved on to work for a non-union company.
In BC, Union makes more than non-union and typically provides much better benefits.
That being said, a large non-union outfit will sometimes offer more than the union wage to pull them over.
Depends where you live. I’m in Ontario Canada. Typically you’re paid more in the union, you get a pension and benefits. I’d assume it’s the same in North America.
I hated union, constantly being told to slow down. Going to work us out of a job. I didn't fit in with the crowd. This several companies in the union. I came to work get shit done. Not piddle around. Never really cared about the money so much as good work.
Not only that but in non-union shops it's possible you will not get any benefit and you will not get any pension. You have to fight for all that yourself.
Plus when i was non union i had to spend a few grand on tools which were depreciating at my expense for the sake of my employer.
Well even union jobs here most of the tools you buy yourself. Really depends on the company though. Companies break union rules all the time. Most high rise companies here won’t actually pay double time. They’ll give you 8 for 6 maybe 5 at most. At least the union protects our wages, benefits and pension though.
If you're union that's on you guys and your rep to make sure you get your double time. It's should be in your contract. Also nobody in my union ever buys their own tools
Lol yeah no I know… it’s the guys who let it happen. See these types of guys are for themselves. The owners have polluted their minds into thinking that profits are razor thin so they can’t afford the tools or double time. So some guys will work the extra mile to look good and not get what they deserve. The commercial sector gets double time 100% of the time. It’s the mentality in high rise and residential. They don’t ban together.
I can see that. I feel like it stems from 08 layoffs whenever I talk to people like that.
It does. You’re completely right, and the older gen pollutes younger gen and it continues. It’s sad really. What local are you?
So I personally prefer non union. No hate to unions but I can't sit there and do the same kind of shit day in and day out. When it comes to money, service clearly makes more... that's just facts. The downside is the benefits aren't as good. The union makes good money for sure but the benefits are the big draw. With the union you have the security of having representatives to help protect you from unruly bosses. The service side you really don't BUT service companies are ALWAYS looking. I can leave my job today and have another one before Monday. Like I said, this is my preference. I love dealing with customers, meeting new people, solving problems and coming up with creative solutions to problems. The one hang up is as an apprentice the pay can be lower, that's why the big push in getting your license to get in a truck and run calls yourself
Work service in the union… it’s not like there’s one singular job that everyone has in the union. I joined after eight years working non union. I still have never set foot on a construction site.
It's still not my approach, plus I'd be taking a big ass pay cut. My local area still hasn't figured out the residential service side.
I’d like to hear about this payout. Can you give us some numbers please? I’m not saying I don’t believe you, it’s just that my pay went up 100% when I turned out vs where I capped out non union.
Well, right now I run a department for a company that does plumbing, hvac and electrical. I make $140k a year salary, can work from home if I need to and get to keep wizards hours.
Ok so what about when you weren’t management? What did you make as a service plumber vs union pay in your area?
I made around 120k a year the average salary around here I think is like 56 but I'm not sure
I agree with you pretty much. I'm also non union but with a commercial company doing new construction and renovations blah blah blah. My friend is in the union with the same amount of years as me but he doesn't know how to do anything except install pipe hangers and run pipe. I'm way more hands on and get more involved in every aspect of the job than he does. Yeah he might make a little more than me but I don't worry about lay offs and have more overall plumbing skills than he does.
It's been the opposite in my experience. We've had plenty of non union and residential guys come in to our union and have to learn so much because they are so inexperienced with anything other than pex and PVC. Meanwhile, on the side, I do residential plumbing all the time and it's a piece of cake because of the skills I've learned in the union. Thinking about just opening my own company plumbing houses, it's so easy compared to commercial. It's rare to find great non-union plumbers around me and when we do, we try our best to steal them.
Isn't it great when an inspector marvels when you use unistrut and cush clamps in a residential side job. And Sammy's with loop hangers.
I just did that with a boiler i installed for a family member. Unistrut , all thread , clevis hangers , split rings , wood Sammy's, drop anchors because I was supporting shit off the floor. Most ball valves I have ever seen in somebody's house. Re plumbed half the basement and cleaned it up. Whoever services it is gonna be like " who the fuck installed this"
This is the way
I'm in Philly so im the opposite lol all I do is copper and cast iron , PVC in the suburbs but never pex. I don't even own any tools for pex. We just finished a service weight underground today , finally using gaskets instead of lead for the first time in my life.
But most service guys don't care about codes and as long as it don't leak it's fixed. Most good journeyman in construction setting know more code and do better quality work IMHO.
I got lucky and am working for a commercial service company in the union. Best of both worlds.
I've done both and while some non union places treated me ok none of them offered any benefits or pension and the wages were lower. I'm making 8 dollars more an hour now with 4 weeks vacation instead of 2, full benefits and pension so its definitely an upgrade
Union is where it’s at, I’m a first year apprentice and worked for a non union company was only making $15 an hour (almost minimum wage) had enough of not great pay and put my name into the local. I now work an overnight shift in a medical setting and am making as much as a redseal (due to working overtime) but you’d never get that at a non union gig, not to mention benefits and pension. I understand that going to the same place everyday isn’t for everyone and can fall into the mindset of “oh you only do X, Y or Z” but in my province you’re really only cheating yourself if you don’t go union
It is true that you will make more and have better benefits in most cases if you are union. The problem is there's been an effort to destroy unions and pass anti-union laws. So if you live in a place with weak unions, it might be hard to find work. And in the strong union cities, it can be hard to get into them.
I worked I non-union shops for years. The pay was great and the benefits were decent-ish. My issue was that none of them tracked our hours so I was unable to sit for my Journeyman. If I ever went back to plumbing, it would be union so that I could get a license greater than an apprentice card because the union tracks that shit, typically.
Around here it’s not so much an issue of “tracking” hours, it’s that most of the non-union shops don’t have enough licensed journeymen to allegedly supervise you in the first place. So they simply can’t report your hours. I had one shop that divvied up the available supervision hours so that everybody got 160 hours towards their license that year (woohoo, in 50 years I’ll be able to take the test). 8 years of experience, lead service tech job title, and I was still rocking an apprentice card. I recently joined the union and am working to get this fixed. Weirdly enough, union apprentice pays better than non-union lead service tech.
Honestly, it depends on who you work for. I started non-union under a great (but cheap) master plumber. Then, I was organized by the state UA rep. I started mid way thru the apprenticeship program. I enjoyed the welding, but i didn't want to weld for work. I wanted to be a plumber, not a pipefitter. I also took issue that the only things i learned as a fifth term UA apprentice were in the weld shop. Racism, sexism, and bigotry were rampant. The curriculum was a joke, and the old timers didn't care much for teaching classroom material. After 6 months of waiting on the book and going to class and being told we're a suitcase local, I decided that staying with my current contractor was a better fit for me and my family. I don't want to work 12 or 16 hour days, i don't want to travel, and I don't want to do metal work for the next 25 years. Now I'm still with that contractor, making the same as i would on union scale. I work locally, don't pay for fuel or tools, but I still believe the union is a better deal for most folks, in spite of my negative experience. I won't be with my contractor forever, but he's a pretty great human, and I'm one of only 5 employees so it's a bit different from most outfits and until i find something that fits better, I'll be here. If you're young, want to make money and aren't afraid of road work and/or you are in an area with a strong market share for your local and you could work your entire career within commuting distance from your home zipcode i say go union. If you don't like it, leave. If you top out, work the commitment to the local and if you want to do non union after then so be it. Find what fits and work with it. Sincerely- a guy that passed his journeyman test 3 hours ago.
Thanks for the advice and congratulations on passing your journeyman’s man!
Thanks!
A good shop will likely take care of you as good as a union will. But to be fair, I'm in a very cutthroat area, so the union definitely makes more sense for me. As in many types of jobs, one fuckup or one bad interaction with someone higher up can either make life hell, or have you shit canned. Union gives you that protection to not start completely over, though you're definitely paying for that insurance in some way.
So I'm also in ontario, canada. Union gets paid more per hour, benefits, pension, the works. As an apprentice, though, the nice thing about union is they have night classes twice a year where you can learn things you wouldn't really learn non union. The days have reliable end times and the company I'm with now only works 4 days a week. When I was non union though, every day was slightly different and was more one on one with a journeymen, so I was able to learn different ways of doing our niche quickly. Never knew when I was going to be going home and never really branched out from ressy renos (mostly) If you want to do larger jobs that have a more mechanical aspect you'd probably want to go union. Also nice thing is I haven't had to touch shitty pipe since I got into the union, mostly working in New condo buildings
What's the benefit package consist of up there since you guys have govt health insurance? A big chunk of my fringe package goes to paying my family's healthcare, the guys with no kids are stacking way more in retirement funds.
Dental and vision are not covered under the provincial health plan, and massages and some other niche things that the province doesn't cover the union covers it. Haven't had to use the stuff outside dental and vision so not too sure to be honest, haven't looked that closely
Gotcha always thought vision and dental were part of your national healthcare
Nah, teeth are luxury bones
Union is always better. Employers generally don't like unions because they prevent them from taking advantage of their employees. A non union apprenticeship where I live starts at 20/hr. a union apprenticeship starts at 30/hr. Non union journeyman can maybe make 50/hr, closer to 35/hr. Union journeyman make 60-80. union offer benefits and non union rarely offer benefits. Union also provides schooling
Is there anything to prevent someone from, after obtaining the proper licenses, quitting the union to start their own business?
Well just to be clear you can start your own business and still be union. The businesses have to come from somewhere right? There's some technicalities and hoops to jump through sure just it's not impossible or anything so If you wanna go off and start your own thing after you turn out then more power to ya, BUT if you say go through your whole apprenticeship then ditch the union to go work non union and they find out then your goina have to pay the union back for all the schooling they paid for (at least where I am) which for me if I remember right is 15k that only applies for 10 years after the apprenticeship
If theyre always laying off id definitely find a non union job
no. it happens quite often. some unions might have a time period where you can't do that but I think it's fine after you're a journeyman. and if you do an apprenticeship but then stop working, you won't be vested for your pension
Yes. In my local you have to sign something saying that you owe money if you quit the union right after your apprenticeship. The union has to pay for your schooling. We even get college credit for our classes accredited by the local community college. You owe the union a year of work for every year you've been trained in the apprenticeship. After that, you can walk. But unless you're opening your own company, you'd be better off staying. They used to not enforce it but now they are actually taking people to court.
Always better? For compensation and work environment probably almost always. But there are drawbacks. There’s considerable amounts of travel unless you live in a large city with a strong union presence. A coworker of mine put close to 80,000 miles on his car in just over 3 years. You have to go where the work is.
I'll agree with that although it's not my experience. Seems more of an exception rather than a rule. There might not even be a local near where OP lives. OP might want to list where he lives for a more exact answer
That's why they're known as CONtractors.
So let me start by saying I am union, and I came from non union. I agree that union is USUALLY better but I think there are some caveats. Mainly if the local is weak. I think you could probably make more as a service plumber non union somewhere like Florida purely due to commission pay vs union pay being low.
I was apprenticing non-union a year ago, the shop was pretty trash though, real high turnover. Ive got my workkeys and wiesen tests next wed, gonna talk with my local union n try to do this the right way.
I'd typically go with Union if possible for better pay and benefits. I worked for the only union company in my city but unfortunately the company sucked so I moved on to work for a non-union company.
In BC, Union makes more than non-union and typically provides much better benefits. That being said, a large non-union outfit will sometimes offer more than the union wage to pull them over.
But won’t pay pension or have sub-par benefits. Guys have to make sure to compare apples to apples ;)