re: Plumbers and steamfitters local 141

I have both been a union member and supervised/managed union employees. Here are my thoughts on unions in general:

- union employees are generally well spoken, intelligent, and well trained. If they are not, they never make the jump from apprentice to journeyman.

- there is no fast-tracking your career in the union….promotions raises, etc are all based on the contract. I was not free to give high performers better raises.

- some companies do some pretty shitty things to employees. This is not nearly as likely to happen with a union workforce.

- Pay and benefits are invariably better in a union position that their non-union counterparts (though don’t forget that you have to pay union dues).

- My thoughts in general: I obviously liked the increased compensation (pay and benefits) with a union job. However, there is always some animosity between management and labor that made for a shitty work environment. That animosity even exists between union members because of the role seniority plays.

EVERYONE seems to hate their job in the union environment.

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Not true in my IBEW local. The payscale is the minimum pay. I know several guys that make more than their scale pay.

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That’s great…and the way it should be, IMO. Some guys bust their asses and always come through in a crisis!

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Meta let that BS on their jobsite?

Probably didnt have a choice Local politicians owned by union probably demanded it so meta could build it

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I would think Mark Z. probably had a hand on that. He probably still hasn’t learned his lesson on the drag unions can have on business.


Louisiana can be very anti union especially in the oilfield and maritime industries. I remember a big anti union push in the late 1990’s and early 2000’s with a campaign called CCFC that pushed back on unionization in Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes.

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On a major industrial project like this, unions will always be involved.

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The one in Cameron Parish has 0 union. Twice as big.

What are they building?

The Union here in NOLA will give journeyman status, based on experience and testing. They also have mechanical companies that are part of the Union, Johnson Controls and Carrier are the main ones.

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Was told he would be hired on permanently by Meta after it’s built.

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LOLZ. You understand data centers contract out HVAC, electrical, and all that stuff? Data centers need rack and stack and cable pullers (Cat 6, etc.) on site, they do not need electricians or HVAC on site. The electricians showed up when we added more PDUs or whips (Power Distribution Units) every couple of weeks, and the HVAC bros showed up about every 90 days.

They're selling him the same bag of crap they sell all the politicians that advertise all the temporary jobs they've "created." $20/hr for HVAC? That's funny, since In-N-Out pays $19 to teenagers to learn the register in Houston.

He needs to look for the ulterior motive. There may some proviso that once he's in the union, he can't bid on independent jobs unless they only accept bids from unionized jobs, stuff like that. The devil is always in the details. Have him get the membership agreement or whatever they're asking him to agree to and upload it (anonymized of course.) The restrictions will probably be apparent to the money and legal crew here pretty quickly.

If you complete the plumbers course at Mississippi’s community college you can immediately sit for the journeyman’s test. That’s all I got.