In this video I'm gonna talk about getting into the plumbing trade for
Union and non-union and let you know what you need to do. And we're gonna talk
about it right now. I'm Roger Wakefield, LEED AP, The Expert Plumber.
I've been plumbing over 38 years and I have every master endorsement in the
state of Texas. On this channel I'm teaching you how to fix your plumbing
fast and free. If you haven't been here before please subscribe so you don't
miss anything. So I get asked often, what's the best way to get into plumbing?
I get asked on YouTube, I get asked on Facebook, I get asked on LinkedIn, I get
asked in person, I actually have people call me and leave me messages and say
Look, I want to get into plumbing. What should I do?
Here's what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna tell you today if you want to get into
plumbing, non-union or Union, what I think you should do and other things that you
should do to help you exceed at it. Number one I think that plumbing is a
great trade and it's been really good for me. I love the fact that I became a
plumber and I'm very prideful about that. It's funny because, I remember late 80s
working in Austin people come up to you, and or girls, let me correct that,
girls would come up to you and say, you know, what do you do for a living? And
when you said you were a plumber they just kind of looked at you and they're like: oh
okay, thanks, nice to meet you. It eventually got to the point where I
would say: look I'm in construction. Well they were fine with that. Funny thing is
I later developed a sense of pride about my trade and really I enjoy telling
people now that I'm a plumber. The first thing that I will tell you is make sure
it's plumbing that you want to get into. Some people may be better as
electricians, as ironworkers, as HVAC people, building elevators, there's a lot
of different things in these trades that you can do so where you can get a great
education, you don't have to pay for college, and you can still make really
good money when you get out or when you get done. And when I say when you get out,
that would be more of the union way. An apprentice training program. So let's
start there, if you want to become a union apprentice, and I'm going to talk
about plumbing, pretty much it's gonna be about the same
with any of the trades. But if you want to join a union, what you need to do is
do research. Find out where is the nearest local in your area. I'm in Dallas,
Local 100 is actually over in Mesquite. So if I wanted to go to school through
the apprentice training program, I would contact that local and ask them where
the JATC is. The Joint Apprentice Training Center. Ours is joint because we
train plumbers, and pipefitters, and we also train some HVAC technicians for the
big chillers and things like that. Refrigeration. To join the local union
what I would do is I would call over there go over and talk to them and
explain to them what I'm looking, for what am I looking for as a career. What
benefits, what I like to have and find out, what they have to offer. You know one
of the things that I talk about in the United Association here in Dallas for
every year we work over 2100 hours we get 1.2 years of service. So that means
we can actually retire a little bit sooner. And there is actually a
retirement there. So if I wanted to go there, I would go over and talk to them
then I'll they would send me over to Garland, to the join apprentice training
center where I would talk to the directors or the admin over there to
find out what I needed to do to enroll. And it's basically it's like applying
for a job, you have to fill out an application, you need to have a high
school diploma or a GED, you need to have a driver's license. So anyway you do what
you have to do to enroll and you try to get accepted. Around the country it's
easier or harder to get in depending on what area you're in, how many people want
to get in. I remember seeing a video where I believe a thousand plumbers had
lined up trying to get in to local one in New York. And that's pretty neat
because I know one of the instructors up there, John Cullen, a great guy. And I
thought that was really neat because there are that many people trying to get into
the trade. Here in Dallas you can go into the apprentice training center any time,
fill out an application or fill out the paperwork and try to get an interview
schedule. They have orientations where they bring people in and tell them what
it means to be in the Union, what it means to come in as a plumber, a pipe
fitter or a welder and these guys come in go through this orientation then they
fill out the paperwork and then they go through an interview process to try to
get picked to be one of the, I'm gonna say, 40 or 50 apprentices that may be
selected at the beginning of each year. Now the apprentice training center is a
training program that operates like a college. So school starts in August. You
get a winter break in December. You come back in January and then you're out
around, what? May? Something like that. It's a great training program. You
learn a lot. The other way is through the open shop. And when I say open shop, any
plumbing company or electrical or HVAC or anybody else that is not Union
is considered an open shop. Anybody can go to work there, you don't have to be a
union member. That's actually how I started my plumbing career. The way that
works is you actually go apply at a plumbing company. Now I will tell you
this make sure that you know what kind of plumber you want to be. Do you want to
build new buildings? Do you want to build big high-rises? Do you want to do service
plumbing in a house and in a residential neighborhood? Do you want to
do service work on commercial jobs, like a restaurant? Or do you want to build new
homes? There's different options and what you can do is talk to some of the
plumbers, talk to people in that area and find out what plumbing companies have a
good reputation, and do the type work that you want to do. Now open shop here
in the Dallas area, I would tell you there are some plumbing companies that
do service, which is what we do, that are big enough that you see them on TV all
the time and if I was just getting into the trade
I would think about going to work for them. Because a bigger company has more
money for education, more money for training and they can bring you in and
spend more money to help you grow to be the kind of plumber that they want you
to be. If you go to work for a little mom-and-pop plumbing company, and don't
get me wrong I have nothing against them, I know some really good ones, but if you
go to work for a little mom-and-pop plumbing company you're gonna learn from
the plumber that you work with and that's probably about it. Now, remember I
told you I started out as an open shop plumber, and do me a favor if you're
watching this video right now, leave a comment down below and let me know are
you open shop or you Union? Or do you want to be open shop or Union? Do you
want to work commercial or service? What do you want to do? Leave me a comment
down below and if you subscribe to the channel I'll make sure that I reply back
to you and talk to you more and tell you what I think about it. So you're gonna
work for a bigger company, you have a better opportunity to learn. Going to
work for a company, I will tell you this. wWhenever you come in realize: look, you've
got a job and they have expectations from you. They want you to learn, they
want you to excel, and they want you to do well. Eventually they're gonna make
money off of you and that's what this business is all about.
Granted some companies do it different, some do it better, some do it worse,
everybody that gets in this trade whether you come in as a plumber a,
welder, a pipe fitter, HVAC, elevator Union, whatever it is, you're getting into
this trade to make money. The way you're gonna make money is by
creating a value to where you know what you're doing, you're good at what you do,
and the company makes money off you by putting you in a position to work to
where they get paid for it. Also, look and find out what is the top end pay? What
does the very top 5% of the people in that trade make in the area that you're
in? Will that be good for you? Will that be good enough for you? Or do you - do you
need to make more than that? Trades are not for every
body, but I will tell you a good tradesman makes good money and the more
they learn, the more value they bring, the more they're worth. So one thing I will
tell you about, the plumbers. I've got a book and it's a study guide that I
recommend and I'll make sure that we put the comments or a link to it in here.
It's the UPC study guide. Now the Uniform plumbing code is a code. And there's
really two that we go by. The UPC and the IPC. The UPC, I love their study guide.
That is what I used to study for my journeyman and my master test here in
Texas. Some states you have to have a license, some states you don't. Check into
it find out what are the requirements. What are you gonna have to do in order
to excel and advance and make the kind of money that you want to make? So the
UPC study guide, what I recommend is when you first get into the trade, and I've
got a video where I talk about the book itself and how I study and I do it
towards the end of it. But what I would do,
watch that video find out how to study, to become a plumber and what you're
really studying is the code. But if you'll study the code as you're learning,
you're gonna learn quicker, you're gonna learn more, and that again creates value.
Now I've got another video where I talk about Union versus non-union, and in that
video I talk about as an apprentice, it was better for me open shop because I
excelled and I did better faster. So I was able to make more money sooner. Not
always that way in the Union, but as a union apprentice if you excel and bring
value you can actually make more money there too. And I promise you if you will
do these things, whether you're open shop or Union, it's gonna make you a better
plumber. Now people also ask me all the time which one do I like better? I will
tell you this as a, plumber I preferred working in the Union, as a business owner
I'm still up in the air about that. I love the fact that I am a union company
because I think that I offer my plumbers better benefits
but here in Texas, in Dallas, I'm the only union service plumbing company that
there is. And it's tough because I'm competing for the same plumbers that
everybody else has but I have to pay them about $12 an hour or more to cover
their benefits. So there's certain things that I've got to look at and decide is,
it worth it for me in the long run? I want the best plumbers and I do pay more
for them, but to me that part's worth it. Please if you haven't done it,
subscribe and ring the bell so you don't miss out on any of the videos and leave
us a comment down below let us know if you're union if your open shop, if you're
an apprentice, if you're a journeyman, and what type plumber you are. Are you
commercial or residential? Do you do service or new construction? I know
that's a lot than if you need to rewind it to watch it again that's fine you can
do it. My name is Roger Wakefield with Texas Green Plumbing, saving you money
one drop at a time.