On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 17:00:43 GMT, B A R R Y
wrote in
:

On Sat, 01 Dec 2007 15:21:43 GMT, Larry Dighera
wrote:

The issue you raise has more to do with the Reagan administration's
changes to labor laws and the influx of illegal immigrants than it
does with any flaws in the way the IBEW is structured. And it has
absolutely nothing to do with professional pilots.

Of course it does, in the manner that you brought it up.

Individuals who obtain their own education and ratings (electrical
licenses) are free to work where they choose.

Those individuals who trained through the union can only work on union
jobs, of which there are fewer and fewer, so they _don't_ work very
much.


Union and Non-union building trades work together on large jobs.

The same would go for pilots if the ALPA trained them.

Illegals have nothing to do with the lack of union electrical work, as
they can't get an electrical license with illegal status.

In California, the state licence has only been a requirement for a
couple of years. Reagan removed the right of unions to require the
general contractor man his job solely with union labor as a contract
condition. That opened the door for non-union labor to undercut union
contractors, because they didn't have to pay employee benefits, and
who knows how many were paid cash....

Today, anyone able to swing a hammer is a carpenter. Anyone with a
paintbrush is a painter. Etc. Painters used to attend five years of
schooling, before they were journeymen. They knew how to do
EVERYTHING.... Today?

Times change. Craft guilds wane. The world is a poorer place without
knowledgeable craftsmen. But in today's world, economics is king.
Noble thought and sincerity are anachronisms. I'm happy I lived in
the age I have. I'm not so sure the future will be as nice a place,
but the exponential progress of technology is almost magical...