Wrong…Its by the amount of hours you work that you get raises. So if you suck and don’t know what your doing you will not work, and not get raises. You cant just be in the union and not have any idea what your doing. The “schooling” usualy does not apply to real life work situations. And unless you can watch people and learn from them without pestering them with questions and so on… you wont last long. Plus right now good luck getting in and getting on a job site. There is a lot of union guys sitting on the bench. And BTW what union is starting apprentices at 12 an hour? Thats real shitty pay…even for an apprentice.
Exactly. Unless you plan on working a trade as a career you are wasting your time joining a union. Your best bet is to try to get in with a union contractor and hopefully get on some state jobs. Then you get prevailing wage which is union rate without subtracting for union dues and benefits. If you are scared of ladders though…you will not make it. Although part of the reasons that there is unions is so that company’s cant send you up on rickety ass scaffolding and ladders or make you do anything extremely unsafe. Though in most trades if not all of them you will be working at heights constantly. So if you cant hack that I wouldn’t bother.