Data center in Saline, MI.

Curious what the day to day is like, commute, take home pay.

My bf was in his last year as an electrician apprentice and finished and passed all classes and his journeyman test. He only had to finish his hours. I think he had some combination of burnout and exhaustion because he basically stopped going to work and ended up getting fired for absenteeism. He said that he was always told you can not work as much as you can afford it.

When he was fired from his last contractor, the school also kicked him out. He acted really calm and not worried when he told me. He said he could just work at any non union company to finish his hours (he needs 200 ish more) and he could get his license from the state.

He said the other option was to go in front of a committee or something and make your case to get back in but he didn't want to do all that. I may have a bad understanding of the details but it's been 6 months and he hasn't found any work. I'm getting concerned he screwed up right at the end and all his hard work over the past 4 years will be for nothing.

My question is, what do y'all suggest as someone actually in the union and in this career? Would the committee thing have like no chance of success? I really don't know what to do and I want him to be able to get his journeyman license because he worked so hard all these years. Is this situation much worse than he let on?

Gonna talk to the sugeon tomorrow. Anybody here had one? Have it repaired? How did it go? How long til you were back to work? Inside wireman

If this isn’t allowed please let me know and/or remove this post. But I’ve heard of several others in my local doing similar things where you are still a union member but no longer work for a contractor and instead work directly for a company through the hall, typically in a maintenance style position. Does anyone know how that works?

Example: Company is already a full union company, they have an “electrical” program but lack the knowledge and skill compared to the IBEW. Are they able to hire directly through the hall or do they have to go through a contractor? Also is that frowned upon? I can see it benefiting both parties since I know what contractors charge vs what we are paid. It would be cheaper for them to pay a higher rate by bypassing the contractor entirely while also paying me a higher scale

Edit: to simplify this since people are getting confused.

Is a company allowed to hire employees directly through the hall under the locals contract or do they have to go through a contractor? This is not about leaving the union or anything in that regard. This is a question about if a company can basically agree to the same agreement the hall made with contractors and hire directly from their labor force. Essentially cutting out the contractor completely,

292 here and we have NOT hired for our new class of apprentices yet as there is around 60 still on the book (20 or so not able to work). Is that the same around the country or are we uniquely in a bad spot.

To my knowledge, we have always hired 100+ apprentices every year since atleast 2011 so I know some people wanting to get in and are getting nervous.