I first entered the union as an apprentice shortly after getting out of the Navy. I was an electrician’s mate in the Navy, and since I needed to work to support myself, I agreed to join the local union and go through their training.

The first thing that I noticed upon joining was that I was asked several times during the application process if I had any relatives in the union. No, I do not. Normally, this would have served to keep me out, but given my high test scores due to my Navy training, and the fact that membership was turning down at this time, they couldn’t come up with any reason to stop me from joining. (If they knew what they were getting, they probably would have tried to stop me anyway.) Ordinarily, this question is used as a sort of “affirmative action” requirement and has been used in the past to keep out blacks and other undesirables. This was confirmed by more than one union member later. The class that I started in also noticeably had the largest percentage of black members of any previous class. There was no small amount of grumbling over this fact within the workforce. This was in the late 1990’s.

Many of the lessons in the first two years of training (You must serve a five year apprenticeship in the IBEW and attend classes.) dealt with Union history and purpose. Propaganda. As luck would have it, my class also contained a couple of others who were not fond of the propaganda role being played here (again, due to the relaxed membership rules) and so we would openly call it as we saw it in class. This did not make us too many friends. We were clearly Conservatives.

On one of my first jobs, I was working with a lifelong union member when 9:00 came around. At that point I was working up on a ladder to mount a junction box in the ceiling for some conduit. I had one screw in place, when my journeyman tells me its break time. I tell him I’ll be done in just a second. He starts yelling, “Its break time now! Get down here and take your break!” This was new to me. In the Navy we took a break when the job was finished, not by the clock. Welcome to Civilian Life!

A few of the members of my class had union Daddy’s, Grand-daddy’s, Uncles, and the like. These guys got placed with the biggest shops, and typically stayed there throughout their apprenticeship. One of my classmates is still with the same shop he started with his first day. I got placed with a small shop which needed some temporary help on a job that was a little bigger than they were used to. After the job was through, I was kept for a short time, and was used on several small jobs, often side by side with the boss. This kind of experience is what they didn’t count on when they placed me there, I think. Alas, work got too slow for the boss to justify keeping even one little apprentice, and because I wasn’t always there when he called, I got laid off. (It got to the point where he told me to stay home and he would call me. Then one Thursday morning, I told him I couldn’t make it due to Whiskey Wednesday at the Bayou the night before. I was laid off shortly afterward…)

Shortly after this, I found myself with one of the larger contractors in town at a job in a paper mill. You get used to the smell. Many of these guys were long time union hands, and had relatives in the union. The real hard nosing began.

It didn’t take long before politics came up with this bunch. This was in 1996, and Clinton was running for re-election against Bob Dole. It took less time for many of the journeymen to figure out that I was a Republican. This is when things got fun.

I got threatened. I got pushed. I was given the dirtiest jobs. I was yelled at for the most minor grievances and called every name in the book, no matter how small or imaginary the foul. It was boot camp all over again. But I had been through boot camp, and survived. I would survive this. And I did, for over a year. I was told that I should “vote my pocketbook.” I said that I was. I was voting for lower taxes. I told them that one day I intended to have more than this life. I was looked at with disbelief. I was laughed at. I was told I was being stupid.

Then many of the same folks figured out that I intended to go back to school after completing my apprenticeship. I was already attending a few night classes. For some reason this did not go over much better. I was told that I was “stupid” for wanting to go back to school. Why would I want to be an engineer when I had union security? After all, we (union hands) had everything! We could come and go as we pleased. If we didn’t like the job or the boss, we could quit, go back to the hall, and get another call. We made good money. (The journeyman did, anyway. I was working a second job delivering pizzas.) We had good benefits. (That part at least was true. I have held onto my meager pension, and the medical insurance was pretty good.)

So amongst all of this, I was working with a particular strong union believer one day, when it came break time. So, naturally at 8:45 we started preparing for break. This is a process, you know. At 9:30 we were still sitting in the work shack after the other guys had left. I turn to my journeyman: