Chad Simmons 798

Alright, welcome back to another episode about the road podcast. I'm your host Ty Lincoln. We're in Guy, Arkansas this afternoon. It's the end of the second day of the Weldon event up here. The podcast has brought to you again by Sleekman Weldon Apparel. Nate makes it all some love. Guy's a brag about it all the time when I'm around him. Wobrows. Chris got plenty of patterns out now in his shirts. F-R, non-F-R, a little lighter weight. Wobrows.us. American steel and sex appeal. Pearl Snack Pimp's Johnny has boo-coos of t-shirts out there for everybody. Girls, guys, everything. He's got the golf polos now. He's got the collab with Sleekman on the skeleton gloves. PearlsnackPimp's.com. TN and Weldon's plong. Miss Mary, Tows, out in West Texas, Big Spring takes your passing through, stopped by and sealed. They've got everything you can imagine. Jack stands, Rod Buckets, Weldon hoods, everything the welder needs. Okay, I am joined and not by Chad Simmons, the organizer for the 798. Hey Ty, thanks for having me. We tried this once before but the sound quality was terrible, so here we are almost. It's probably over here. So we'll start with your job title at the 798. Okay, so yeah, I am the director of organizing for Logos 798. So basically over the organizing department, anything new, we recruit new members. We look for new gas companies to work for. We look for new contractors to come in and sign union contractors. So let's, all right, so we got that part of the way. Let's go with what got you started pop line. Okay, so I'm a third generation pop lineer, a second generation, 798 member. My grandfather was a, was a pop lineer operator, superintendant, and then my dad was a 798 welder, stirred, water forming, and so I just kind of kind of followed in that footsteps. No, you started out with the 798. Excuse me, your first job welder helper? Yes, yep. How long did you help? Let's see, I started in 1987. He's when I first got in Logos 798, and I helped for pretty good while. I worked my way through college. So I'd worked during the summer and I have a degree in biology, and also I'd pay for all my school that way. And then once I got a degree in biology, I decided that working for the state or going to mid school wouldn't really what I wanted to do. So I got serious about my pipeline career, and then I started working towards getting broke out. And breaking out is the, the act of going from an apprentice helper into a journeyman role, for everybody that don't know, because I feel like sometimes I don't explain it. That is breaking out. If you're a helper, you break out as a welder, or in our case of the 798, you can go the journeyman route. And I don't, I'm learning a lot about it, but I will let Chad explain that part of it. Yeah, so yeah, we have we have journeyman welder and then journeyman spacer. You know, journeyman welder kind of speaks for himself, but journeyman spacer is a guy that, you know, works in the pipe gang, does spaces pipe, carries the line, is the pipe man, guy works in hydrostatic testing, you know, running all the valves, dressing the manifolds, catching pigs, that sort of things. You know, we have, we have journeyman that are, that are tying me in. And so, yeah, there's, there's, you know, not as many opportunities for a journeyman on the job, as there would be for welders, you know, typically pipe gang, you know, big pipe gang, you have, you have five journeyman up there, you know, and then, well, journeyman also are responsible for running in facing scenes. You know, so yeah, not as many spots for, for the journeyman spacer, but, you know, still a, still a good living, you know, guy that, a guy that's really good at spacing and are really good at carrying the line, he can, he can work just as much as he wants. And we have some journeyman that are basically career testing journeyman. That's, that's basically what they do is, is work in the hydrostatic testing. Like, uh, Mississippi slim that I met down in Louisiana, he does a lot of testing. Yes, that's exactly right, yep. I know he's carried some lines too, but, you know, I guess the later part of his career has been a lot of, uh, testing. Yeah. And he seemed to be pretty, I worked knots when they was there, so I didn't, well, I wouldn't round them a lot, but we stayed in the same campground, so when we had some time, we would visit and stuff. Well, let's hit this real quick. A piece of advice from the first part of your career. Um, I would have probably broke out sooner. I think, uh, I think sometimes, you know, you're reluctant to take that next step in life, you know, going from, from a helper with, with a lot of security and bailing off into something new, you know, because, um, you know, when I was, when I was helping, you know, there was, there was plenty of opportunities out there. You know, um, you straw for, you know, a couple of different pipe men, you know, a couple of different welder form, and so you could work basically whenever you wanted. And, and, you know, you're working almost year-round, but you're making the same, or sometimes even more than some welders and, and gentlemen, you know, and so it's kind of a, it's a security blanket. So you're sitting, you know, you're sitting there and you get, and you got all these opportunities. And of course, when you're younger, you know, you, uh, got a wife and a couple of kids and a couple of dogs, you know, uh, new camper note, new, new truck note. I mean, it's a pretty good plunge to, to jump off into it, but yeah, if, uh, my advice would be, you know, when, when you're ready, do it, because, uh, I was, uh, I was like a lot of other people, they said, you know, once you break out, you want to get to work as much. Well, I'm just, uh, living testimony that they lied. Yeah. Straight up lied. Yeah. I think I worked 2400 hours the first year I broke out. Right. And it's all about the time, you know, even whether it's non-union unions, all about the time that you break out, you know, if the work's on the uptick, it's a great time to break out, you know, if it's kind of one of them slow years, it'd be a good time to maybe be reserve and hone your skills a little bit more, you know, if you're not 100% confident in yourself, no, I'm not saying that you can't go out here. Like when I broke out, it was, you know, it was on the rise because Trump was coming to the office, you know, so we knew it was going to be a lot of work. So it worked out good. But I've also had guys break out during some of the slower times and they succeeded too, you know, at all. It all depends on your, your self and the opportunities that you present it, you know. That's right. Yeah. You're exactly right. It does have a whole lot to do with time and, you know, and now it's probably a good time as any work outlook is looking up. You know, there's a, there's a tremendous amount of work, you know, pipeline, building trades, constructions in general. And so, yeah, it's a, that's a term I wasn't real, real familiar with till joining is building trades, you know, and I'd even worked, you know, some building trades. But, you know, I just called it plan stuff, you know, like we didn't, we didn't have a terminology for it. But it was with, you know, the local out of Texas there. And I never become a member. I don't, I think I was on the cusp of becoming a member. I don't remember how it all went down. But my, in that, in that, I don't know what you call it, but in that time frame right there, they work differently than we work. They do, you know, pipeline, that pipeline mentality about get all this stuff done, you know, make as many welds you can, they don't, they don't function that way. So it's a little bit more, like they want, they want production too, just not the same driven production as a pipeline. In miles, that's the way it kind of went. Yeah. Yeah, you'd be on the trade world, like you said, it's plants, battery, you know, battery plants, chip plants, you know, whatever. And it's a different, it is a different mentality, you know, those, a lot of those guys, you know, they're set, you know, typically work, four, tens, five, tens, you know, now you're seeing more and more hours over there. But, you know, that's a lot of times these guys go into these factories I mean, and they may be there for years, you know, where a pipeline job lasts, you know, six, seven months, I mean, that's like a, it's like a long job for us. Yeah, that's a big job. You know, yeah, it's a really big job. So these, yeah, it is a different mentality, you know, and for us being, being in the, in the UA and local sub 90, you know, we can work through our sister locals in the building trades if a guy wants to. So if a guy wants to go combo weld, he has the opportunity to go over there. You know, you just always got to remember that, you know, you're in a guest house when you go, right? So, so you can't take the the rare back rip at pipeline attitude over there with you because, you know, you're going to play about their rules when you go over there. The good thing you You know, you go over there, you go make a good wage, you know, whatever their benefit package is, it's going to reciprocate back to local 798. So you're going to get, you know, it'll go towards your retirement, your insurance, your 401k, you know, it's just not all the reciprocation rates are the same. You just got to kind of monitor what the wages are and what the benefits are to see, to see, you know, if you're going to get one for one or one and a half for one or maybe you only get three quarters for one. So it's just something that you got to monitor. But it is a good way when pipeline work slows down typically in the winter time. It's a good opportunity for you to keep making money and keep, you know, keep stacking up your benefits. Like I talk about not working the rest of this year, but I also have the same. You know, I got my insurance goals, you know, across that barrier this year. But I, you know, there's some jobs going on building trades. I don't sound too bad where I could go collect, you know, a couple hundred more hours. I don't know that I will, but it's an opportunity that it is. So if you know, like I don't know where the text message started coming from my phone, you know, I don't know what I did to do that, you know, like the 430 or what's in Tulsa? So they messaged me the other day talking about stuff out, out there someplace. They probably came from Jimmy. They probably came through the dispatch. I know they come with my phone and have numbers and stuff. And I feel like this conversation might have been a little different than the one we previously recorded because now I have the 790 experience. Yeah. And I know a little bit more of the ends now. I know no everything. There's a lot of stuff to track, you know. Like I know a thing that you get hit with all the time is the why do we pay you to work? Yes. You know, and this comes from just years and years of rhetoric. You know, we used to do a lot of work in this in the South, you know, back '06, '07, '08, you know, probably up till like 10 or 12, every big inch pipeline that was laid down the I-10 or I-20 corridor from Texas all the way to Florida was union. You know, and then our contractors went to the Midwest and we went with them, you know. And so they never quit laying pipelines in the South. Just we just quit. We just quit build, you know. And so, you know, so that's where you get that mentality. If you've got a you got a vast workforce in Texas, Louisiana, all across the Gulf Coast. And all there is is non-union and you're listening to Joe Owner tell you that the union's bad. You know, you got to pay somebody to work. You know, you can't work all the time on all this rhetoric, you know. And yes, you do pay somebody to work. You sure do. It's $31 a month. Right. There's going to take 3% out of your check for work and dues, okay. And so, is it worth it? Am I booked? Yes. I mean, you're going to get a 35 to 40% raise and it's going to cost you 3%. I mean, how many, how many folks out there have a gym membership that they pay 30, 35 bucks for and they never use? Sure. I do it. You know. So it's, yeah. And non-union, you know, we talk about union dues. Okay. So we established it's 31 bucks a month. It's 3%. Okay. So what is it, what does a non-union do? What is a non-union dues? You know, you're getting 5 or 6 bucks less on your rig. Yeah. I like it. That is a, that is a non-union dues. You know, you're making, you know, anywhere from 16 to 20 bucks an hour less. On the arm. On the arm. You got, you know, our benefit package is 36 bucks. Right. That covers our insurance, our health care, our 401k and contributions into our training center. Right. So 36 bucks an hour. That the contractors contribute it on your behalf for every hour that you write. Right. And what non-union letters are getting 38? Yeah. All of it is short jobs all over West Texas that pay 35 and 36. They post it on Facebook. Yeah. I mean, so yeah. I mean, we can talk union dues all day, but let's talk nine union dues while we're at it. Yeah. And then, you know, the average per day in the day on the union are the non-union sides of 100 or just 165 or more. 165. Seven days a week. Seven days a week. You know, that's 1100 and 1155 dollars a week. A week. Yeah. It's just where you're used to making 600, you know, that's an extra, what, $500, $550 a week in your pocket. You know, it, you know, like we, we, we have joked about about my non, you know, the last part of my non-union thing, like I was saying we was in Minnesota, you know, and a guy comes up an organizer comes up and he's talking to us and stuff and we're not listening, you know. And then, you know, dealing with the contractor I was dealing with and stuff. And, you know, then you come around and you start talking and I'm talking to, you know, the inspector that we had there, $7.98. And then I'm interviewing Scotty, you know, $7.98. And it just, you know, if you step back, one thing I think a lot of people don't understand, you know, we've heard all this stuff. You know, it's been beating our brains since we got into the pipeline, you know, or some of us are whole life, you know, if our parents are deep south about, you know, unions are bad, unions are bad. Well, you know, and so I've traveled, done that all last year. And then, you know, then this year started a, well, I got my book last August. And so, you know, but I wasn't using it yet, you know, and so it. And then you start to get mild because you're thinking that it's, you know, it's going to be something better on the other side of the fence, that's why you did it, you know, and when I quit, pop line, and I was just working for SPS. And some of the things that happened there, and it's just like, boom, now, you know, I flipped a switch, went to work in Louisiana, and you get down there and you start meeting the people and you, you know, you make a check. It's not a bragging thing, but, you know, you, you work 60 hours and you're making 3,300 and then you work 44 or 45 hours, you made 4 grand, you know, it's just a different. It's life changing money. And that's not even counting the benefits package, you know, and it's, it, not to be union propaganda, but it, it stinks from me that, you know, that I think about buddies and stuff that are on the other side. And I'm like, because their work, their, their work is as good as mine or better in a month, and you're selling yourself for half the money, because without even checking out the benefits, not even talking about benefits period, it's still half the money, you know, it's crazy to me. It is. Yeah, let me say, you know, you, you mentioned that we had done this before in the audio got messed up, and I wish we would have had that one, because when, you know, when, when we first, first run across each other was, was May, but 18 months ago or so. Yeah, and then yeah, and then we, we had some conversations and then we did the podcast, you know, but there, there was always that curiosity, you always had that curiosity, right? You didn't want to be 798, but you wanted to know about 798, right? And the more that you learned about it, the, the more that you thought might, well, maybe ought to try this. Yeah, well, you can't be, you know, I can say and talk about non-union all day, because I got eight years of experience non-union. But, and so, and now people are going to be like, always biased, because I hold a book, you know, but it's still a simple fact, because you know, because I've made phone calls to you about, you know, certain business, and I'm like, is this right? You know, because we want to know if it's, if it's, this how it is, you know, then sometimes it's separated, but, you know, overall curiosity kind of killed the cat, you know, 100% because you know, you, the biggest thing was talking to Scotty. And a, you know, his outlook on it, you know, he come from the non-union was non-union for a long time, you know, and so his outlook on it, and what it's done for him, and then chase with his insurance and four or five small kids, you know, and what he already had accumulated in his 401k. And curiosity was the biggest thing, because you can't stay here and preach or, you can't stay here and bash something forever, it's like a, you know, like it's like drinking beer, right? So this guy likes Bud Light and this guy likes Mikolo, well, you know, I think Mikolo's criminally crap, but to some people Bud Light's criminally crap, well, I can't make a judgment on it, because if I've never tried Bud Light, I can't make a judgment on it, you know, so, probably, you know, reporters don't do it this way. You know, they don't just go join the other team, you know, like the New York Post ain't going to go join Fox News, you know, to figure out their side of the story there, but for me, it's just, it's a good thing, but not to keep this about myself. So, middle of your career here, to get back to the, to your career, middle of your career, your journeyman now, your space and pop carrying the line. And so, and for everybody that don't know, carrying the line is like our front informant kind of guy. That's, you know, skids, space and pop that, he's an overall, you know, kind of just in charge of all this stuff. It's the same thing as our front informants, except they do, they do work and where some of the non-union guys just run the truck, but it's the same, same concept. The terminology is another thing that they, their terminology is just a little bit different, but it's the same exact task, it's just word of different, more professional sounded, so to speak. So the middle of your core. You're space and pop, I mean you're not to the end of it obviously but middle of your space and career. So what is a piece of advice that you have to put that part of your career in a frame? Or nut shell? You know just work hard every day. Show up on time, have a good attitude. And especially space and pop, big pop, you got three or four welders running at the same time. I mean everybody likes something just a little bit different. Just find that happy medium, the good attitude. Spacer with a good attitude and a little bit of a comical joke. He can get away with missing one every nine years. It works tough enough as it is without everybody being tense. And never turn a job down. I mean when I broke out I say the boys were small and it was a scary thought but it didn't take long for people to realize my work ethic. Which they knew my work ethic before I broke out. They didn't know what my tournament skills were at the time, you know when I first broke out but they didn't take very long that they realized it. So it didn't matter where somebody had a job when they called I went. I didn't ask what it paid, I didn't ask how long it lasts, I was just like yeah I'm on the way. And so you do that for a little bit and then you've branded yourself. People realize what kind of skills you have, that you're at the top of your game and you just ride the way from there. One thing that if you look back at all the podcasts that I've ever recorded and you ask a guy or a gal you say what do you think is the best middle of the road? The middle of your career advice, it's always hard work. That's something that both sides of the fence they don't matter whatever you're doing. Like Brett said yesterday you can work at the McDonald's. You just need to be a hard worker, good attitude. You know like we talked about yesterday in the Q&A, it's never that you're a media boss or you're a media welder or whatever you're working for that keeps you busy. It's the people around that see it, you know operators tend to go be time-formans and stuff on this side too. It's not just, you know like on the, I don't know about the non-union side because there's no real, you know, there's the welder, there's the helper, there's a time-forman, there's a run-in-forman. You know, it's kind of like a, I don't know, it's just like where, you know, like I don't know, maybe then guys was operators at one time or laborers and then they just moved up to a time-form. I don't know, I guess I never, I guess I never paid much attention about it until I got on this side, you know, and it's, you know, because we all, we don't go outside of each other scopes of work, you know. Like, you know, like I'm not saying, I don't want to be pretty mad on them, but, you know, I've stacked skids, you know, when it, you know, but it's kind of, you know, sometimes you get yourself in some trouble, you know, throwing skids when it's, you know, it's supposed to be there, you know, the labor hands job or whatever, you know, they're supposed to handle that. Not getting nice and stuff, you know, and another thing that was mind-blowing on the whole 7-0-18 thing was the, no business before 7 o'clock. Yeah, you want to elaborate on that a little bit. Oh, yeah, yeah, so, when you, when you come on a, on a 7-0-18 job, you know, first and foremost, 7 o'clock, you know, you go find the stirred, you're going to sign up with the stirred, and then you're going to sign up with the payroll department. You hit a lick at a snake, right? If they ain't no drug testing, they ain't no orientating, they ain't no well testing on your money. Right. Everything we do, we're going to get paid for it. So, like I said, you come in, you sign up with the stirred, you sign up with the payroll department there, they send you out. You know, they probably, they probably already got your nipples prepped for you. You know, you go out there, you get it all spaced up the way you like it. You know, stirts there, or if the stirred's not, there's a welder assigned to welder testing that's there, you know, and they'll, they'll talk you through it. You know, hey, you know, the inspectors like this or this, you know, they've been taking a nickel lamp, any space, whatever it may be. And they'll tell you, they'll, they'll, you know, kind of, kind of give you some pointers on what's there. And then you, you know, you take the test. For some reason you have the misfortune and not make the test, you know, if, if you get, if you bust the test before 11 o'clock, you know, you're going to get five hours. You know, if you bust it, if you bust it in the afternoon, then you're going to get paid 10 hours for that day. You know, and so you may have drove a thousand, fifteen hundred miles, you know, but, but like I said, you're going to get paid for your time. You know, nothing for free. And then, like you say, you know, seven o'clock, you know, seven o'clock is one work time starts. You know, we'll do our JSA. You know, you get your supplies from the, from the warehouse, you know. I know, I've heard a lot of horror stories from the non-union, water and ice. Right. Water and ice is the contractor's responsibility. It's an OSHA rule. Right. You know, grinding disk, well, buffing wheels, you know, rods, umbrellas, mud boards. Rod buckets. I mean, you know, I mean, I don't know exactly what the non-union does and don't supply, but, you know, any consumable out there, umbrella, all of that stuff is provided, you know, by the contractor files. They just, you know, we don't, we don't, we don't buy that stuff. Right. We're not required to buy that stuff. You know, a beveling machines, right. We don't carry a beveling machines. We don't carry jacks things, right. And we get $22 an hour for a raid because that's what the R.S. is. The Dean's Sustained Radio. You don't, you know, you don't provide all that extra stuff. We have two rates on the rig. We'll, we'll talk about that. Yeah. So you want to hit that now? Well, once you finish your little spill. Okay. But, you know, the, yeah, seven o'clock is when work time starts, you know, and, and, and, and five thirty is, is when the days over. You're going to get, you get your thirty minutes for lunch. You know, if you do work through lunch, you don't get paid for it. You know, if, you know, if you work past five thirty, you don't get another hour for it. You know, and, and if you have any discrepancies in your time, you know, if you're wearing them on the fire line, of course you'll be under the welder forming, which is same as the well-boss on the know you said. You know, if you're working in a pot, again, that pot man's got you. But if, you know, if you're working in a tie-in crew or, or a road-borne crew, then, then that forming could be carrying time. But if there's a discrepancies in your time, you know, you go to that welder forming and telling you, you know, hey, look, you know, I feel like I feel like we should have had twelve hours on Monday. But, you know, my check's not reflecting it. And so they'll look into it, you know, and you got the steward there as well. You know, and, and some people think that the union, like, the union is there to protect the people and the union is there for that. But the union is also there to protect the contractor. Okay, so the union's stirred is there. He's like a, he's like a referee, basically, right? He's going to make sure that the contractors doing the right thing. Okay, but he's also going to make sure that the 798 members are doing the right thing. - Sure. - Right? Because we have an obligation to those contractors to give them our honest days work for honest days pay. - Sure. - So, like, I'm big on tally books. Every time I go to a job, they're, you know, well, the three jobs I've done this year have all been in one tally. You know, but there's a gap in there from when I was working for the company out of Fort Worth. And then when I started, you know, my 798 adventure down in Louisiana, I started a whole tally book. And Greg and then was like, he couldn't, you know, like, what did we do this day? - Mm-hmm. - I showed down in there. Every single, you know, we started time. We started making a well at 745, finished at 850. You know, and then we set our truck for an hour and 10 minutes while they dug this. And then we was out and we made another well. But we made two cuts, you know, all this stuff flowed down. So when we did miss an hour one day, you know, the time for me missed us on an hour. And our back will pay, you know, the premium pay. I went back and I said, well, we did, this is exactly what we did that day. James was like, all right, he writes it down in his notes and then sends it in, you know, get done deal. And it kind of was, I mean, I've always been that way, no matter who I work for, for junior non-units not 'cause I don't trust anybody. It's also cool to go back a couple years later, you know, you pass right away and you say, well, you know, you remember the job. You can flip back through that certain book and find exactly what you did that day. You know, you might have been crossing I-20 or I-10 or, you know, whatever. And you can go back and look at it. You know, I don't know, I don't know. I got a stack of my kids look back doing one day. You know what I'm saying? Well, my dad was on this project, these dates and blah blah, which we also keep up with hours on the, you know, like, I had to go on to head on the, on the union side. So I kept up with my hours for that, too, you know, where I stood out on that business. Let's see. I don't want to go up that forehead. We'll touch on the other half of the rig there. Yeah, let's talk about, let's talk about the rig. Okay. So yeah, so the IRS has a deep sustainability rate, right, a wet rate and a dry rate, right? So you're providing your own fuel. It's $22 an hour, right? Contractors providing fuel. It's a, it's $14 an hour. Okay. So, you know, and the contractor has, has the right to go either way, you know, so typically ours is you provide the fuel you get to $22. And what constitutes a winery, right? So, that's a reliable truck, that's a 200 amp web machine or larger, that's a hundred foot of lead, a hundred foot of ground, that's a cut and rig, you know, gauges, torches, hose, and a grinding, that's what it constitutes to get $22 an hour. All that extra stuff, you know what I mean, we have guys, now we have guys that do a lot of fabricating, you know, they carry their two whole pans and their levels and pro tractors and, you know, and all this other stuff, but, you know, like I said before, no jack stands, no beveling machines, none of that stuff, you know, our contractors will provide that stuff. True. Gloves, you know, I don't typically wear tilmans, not my cup of tea, got up to my boy Nate Slickman, hopefully one day that we get our contractors, I know there's quite a few guys I've already pushed for Slickman with our contractors, so hopefully that deal works out one day, you know, where we get a glove like that, which it's hard, it's also hard to break ties when you've done something for, you know, the last 40 years or so, you know, it's hard to get guys away, but I know when I was in Louisiana, you know, I was predominantly, it was a lot of older guys with never even hired a Slickman, they don't have social media and stuff, but I've seen some of them order Slickmans after I give them a pair, you know, they try to own a pair. Yeah, Nate makes a really good glove, you know, I've had some of them, you know, and Nate about, and I've had this conversation, you know, but OSHA passed a ruling back in 2007 that welding gloves were a part of PPE, they are not specialty gloves as these contractors claim, they are part of PPE, you know, and that's what explain to Nate, you know, our guys typically don't buy their own gloves, you know what I mean, they may buy a pair too, you know, to work around the farm or whatever, but you know, whenever we're out on the job, welding, you know, that is a requirement of OSHA and our contractors are providing them, you know, so-- I kind of got barked at one time about wearing Slickman, they're like, I don't know why you buy own gloves, you know, but for me, it's a different case, you know, yeah, some more of that non-union we're talking about, right, buy your own gloves, they're $50 a pair now, you know, but it's just I don't, and another thing, you know, going for a lot of people, you know, a lot of people's built these reputations, and it's one side where you're kind of going into a brand new hospital, you're a freshman at a brand new hospital, you know, it's kind of a crazy thing, but you know, I feel like, like I talked about in the Q&A, I went down, took a welding test, you know, they, the welding for me, none of them knew me, I mean one guy, and he'd never seen me work, he just knew my, my ugly mug, and well, you know, I was judged off for what I did on a welding test, 100%, I mean, I don't, wait me in that welding for me, didn't say like six words to each other, so he didn't judge me off my sincere humor, you know, it was, it was straight off of what I did, you know, or I feel like it was, I don't know, there's a lot of good welders down there, so I can't say, you know, I was a tear, but I don't know, it just, it had to been off of what I did, I don't, I don't know how to explain it, good thing you slicked one in there, ain't it? Sure, I mean, flying squirrel funds, none of them know that, you know, but like I said, made the first, we made the first tie in down there, and we made the last weld, you know, the whole job, so I'd done that too many times a non-union, so I mean, I've been forced up to do it a few times, but it ain't been very often, but you know, that's a great example though, you know, you come in there on your first job, they looked at the test that you put on, and you put a nice test on, you know, and so, so they put you, they put you in a premium spot, you know, welding tie-ins, and it goes back to, goes back to everything that always comes up, right, hardworking a good attitude, right, you know, that no different union non-union, whatever you're doing, right, your abilities, your abilities and your attitude, and more your abilities than anything, because if you're sure enough jam a weld, or they can, they can deal with a little bit of your, um, uncooperativeness, arrogance, whatever you want to call it, right? But, you know, it's, your abilities are going to leave your way, you know, when somebody first comes over, it's not always roses for everybody, it's just like non-union, I mean, you didn't come, you didn't come out, as soon as you broke out on the non-union side and you were the aced-lead-off hand, you know, you got to let your reputation build itself, and so either side of the fence, and I get it guys come over and you are, it is a start and over period, you know, per se when they come over and on, they kind of got to get it used to it, you know, we do things differently on this side, right? And, and when guys first come over, sometimes they don't understand why we do certain things, but everything that we do is, you know, there's, there's, um, 790 is 76 years old in December, right? And so we have, the rules and regulations that we have are there for a reason, they're, you know, they're, they're either, you know, make sure that we're being as safe as we possibly can, or, or we are, you know, showing, um, uh, we're, you know, we're showing respect for our fellow brothers, right? It's not, you know, like the whole, holding rods on the fire line, right? People are always like, I don't know what you get about holding rods on the fire line. Whether it's a respect thing, you know, whether you're holding one or two rods, you're not, you're not just running up there and, and welding as fast as you can and they go sit, sit your butt in the truck while, uh, you know, while your fellow brothers, uh, out there, out there still trying to make the weld, you know, if everybody welds and, and you're, you're staying one, two rods off at the end, whatever it may be, and it makes, it makes the fire line float, right? And, and so, I mean, actually makes it quicker. Yeah, it kind of, you know, once it gets going, it's a steady, you know, it's a steady pace. It's, it's different. Sure, I'm, I'll experience it one time when I was in a one day, two welds, and it was kind of, you know, uh, luckily I had, you know, I had the weld partner, I had Gray, you know, you know, and his great steward of the trade, wouldn't matter if he was, if he was non-union, union and don't matter. He's a great welder, a great person, but, you know, Gray helped me out a lot about a lot of things, you know, like when me and him welded by ourselves, that's one thing. We welded, you know, we kind of, bowed up on some things, and welded however we wanted to weld. You know, that day that we went to the fire line, he was like, all right, and we put you, uh, the guy that was leading the fire line, and it was Greg, and it was me that it was another guy that was kind of welded, Greg knew kind of welders in the same pace, so he was all kind of, you know, it wasn't, I couldn't get too crazy and get myself in trouble, you know, because we were singled out, so everybody could see, you know, you could see, I don't have any welders out there, but it was a bunch of us. And so it kind of kept me from getting myself in a bind, you know, so I could just watch Greg, and I knew that me and Greg welded the same pace, like when we would weld together, we could get to the bottom of the same time, so I kind of, you know, I mean, he had a head start on me, so obviously he didn't beat me, all right, that bad, but it's different, but at the same time, I kind of was like, oh, it's, you know, it's kind of weird, I don't understand it, but then after experiencing it, you know, it kind of does, you know, everything's kind of still trucking forwards, and I, you know, I thought it was the craziest crap in the world, singling out on 36 inch pot, but it's kind of, chillax weld, and I'm not, you know, because you, you're not going to wear, like we wouldn't leapfrog, and, you know, so, and we had to fill it, and then we would all move to the other side, and we'd fill it and cap that side, and we'd come back, cap the other side towards the truck, you know. We'd go the ditch side, and we'd come back to the work inside there. Well, you know, it's, it's kind of just a, it's an experience, and so I wish, I wish that more gas cylinders would let people fly a drone, so you could get it all, because it's kind of, you know, it's like this guy moving, and this, you know, then it's kind of, it's, it runs pretty smoothly, and it's everything, especially, like Mr. Brett, real good about putting his welders, how they needed to be, you know, so it went that way, you know. So nobody was holding nobody, you know, because even, you know, even if we think about it, if you're on the non-unuside, and you're super fast, like me and Parker was up in Oklahoma, right, we super fast, compared to some of the greener hands, we were setting back here in our trucks for 20 or 30 minutes, sometimes longer than that, you know, waiting to pull up, well, you know, the way that thing works, it's, you know, it kind of goes quickest down through your thing, well then by the time it's in, we're, you know, it, it works, it's just smooth the way it operates, if you get it, if you're a guy like Mr. Brett that can read his welders and kind of understand where to put people out, you know, that's a, that's a big part of any job, I think, too, you know. Yeah, now you're exactly right, yeah, you know, we have some waterformers that are, that are artist, that making sure that they get the right people and the right spot, you know, I said it's, it's a moving assembly line, and you know, whenever you get a, when you get a fire line tuned up, I mean, it's a, it's a work of art, you know, you got, and you got that front end up there, you know, doing everything they can to stay away from them, try to, try to outrun the wind. Wasn't much outrunning anybody and that swamp in Louisiana, but, you know, it's got to slow go, but yeah, all right, and so we've covered everything. Let's talk about benefits here, because this is the, this should be the no deal for anybody that can do basic sick math, this, you know, and, like I said, I have a said in the past, this should be the simplest thing for a lot of people to really wrap your head around and think about, especially for a lot of us that's got two or three kids, you know, we're in that 25 to 40 bracket here, you know, we've got a 401k and some things, but I can tell you, you can rack this up kind of quick. If you're smart, a little bit smart with the money, you need to be real smart, just a little bit of smart with money. Well, let's talk about that $36 now or our benefits package. Yeah. Yeah. So, like you said, you know, the benefit package, what does it cover, right? It covers your health and welfare, it covers your retirement pension, you know, it's a contribution to your 401k. There's a contribution that goes to our local 798 training center up in Tulsa, and then there's money that goes to the International Training Center. So, the healthcare, you know, so our healthcare is second to none. It doesn't cost you a nickel, right? It's all part of this, and this $36 benefit package we're talking is the contractor pays in on your behalf. There we are. It's got a dollar coming out of the employees out of, I take it, it's not coming out of my check period. No, it's not. And it's like I said, the contractor is paying it for you, and it doesn't matter which one of our contractors you work for, they're all going to pay into it, and it's going to go to the, going to go up the hill at the, to the PIBF, right, by my interest, your benefit fund, you know. So, once you've worked 800 hours, then you qualify for the healthcare, but healthcare covers you, your wife, and your children, you know, up, if they're in college up to their 26 years old, you know. And so, if you have, you know, if you have children from multiple sources, it's going to cover all the children, right? It's only going to cover the woman that you're married to. Right. Right. So, you know, we have to clarify that a lot times during the pipeline world. But, you know, that we have a, we have $1,000 deductible, but we also have a $4,000 HRA Health Reimbursement Agreement, right? And so, what, what basically what that means is if you're out of pocket, up to $4,000, you remit this form back, and they're going to give you up to $4,000 back, that you spend out of pocket. I can tell you, you know, that this is my 38th year in, logo 7a, and we haven't had this the whole time, but there's a lot, a lot of years that I don't have $4,000, you know, maybe, maybe the year that the kids had braces or something like that, or, you know, if you have to have a, have a major surgery, but it's many years that you don't, you don't have the opportunity to reach that $4,000 reimbursement, which is a great thing. You know, I mean, take childbirth, for instance, you know, we were, we talked earlier today, you know, guys are talking about, you know, it cost $1,000 to have a child, you know, where, if you don't have insurance, I mean, I, what, $45,000, maybe, I mean, I was 10,000 years ago. I don't know what it would cost today, and if you had, say, God forbid, you're maybe had complications. Exactly. You for a week or 14 days, you know. Yeah, but the insurance, I mean, like I said, the insurance is impeccable. The pension, the pension, I mean, you can't say enough about the pension, you know, our pension fund has $1.8 billion with a B, right? It is, it is one of the best pension funds in America. And not, not union pension funds, I'm talking about pension fund period, $1.8 billion in it. And so, you know, what, what does that translate to in a guy retiring? You know, a, a journeyman credit just went to $265. So for every credit that you get, when you get to retirement age, you're going to draw $2.65 a month, you know, and just for a simple math, you know, you got 10 years in, that's $26.50, you know, we got guys that are drawing North of 10 grand, you know. We talked to a guy yesterday, but yeah, if he, if he never worked again, it was $13,000 a month and some change. And this year, we talked about the 13th, the double 13th check. Yeah. That's some craze, craze money, because I know if, you know, if you can do simple math, I mean, I made a lot of non-union checks. The most time they're in that, you know, 13, you might push 20 here and there out of a month. Well, but 13 grand just in a pension for your retirement, it's not counted for 1K. A lot of people get it confused. It's two separate, it's two separate things. It's not, it's not the same. But 13 grand is a lot of money, you know. Yeah. Just set around on. Yeah, and you, you talk about the 13th check. So what, what, what, what that means is, you know, a retiree, he's, when he retired, he's got, he's got his set amount, right? And, and so you can, you got several different electives. You know, you can go, you can go, like a 50, 50 deal where, you know, when you, if you pass away first, then, then your spouse would get, would get 50% of it, you know, and there's several different elections. So, and everybody's situation is different. But that 13th check. So, you know, let's just say that, that you draw $10,000 a month. Okay. So what that means is you're going to get $10,000 a month for 12 months out of the year. Well, when we have a surplus, then they come out with a 13th check. So they get an extra check for 10 grand. Well, this year, they got a double 13th check. So that would have been 20 grand. That they got plus, plus the retirees got a raise of three percent that was retroactive back to January. So they had already been paid all the way through September and then the PIBF backed up and added that three percent all the way back to the first of the year. So retirees, I mean retirees, they'd live in high on the hog. You know, I mean, it's, it's a, it's a great thing. And what you don't realize when you're working, when you're working on union is the union guys, they're, they're, when, every day they go work, they're getting paid for today and for the future, right? You're getting, you're, you're building that pinch and you're building that 401k, you're building that insurance. And if, if, you know, if all you're doing is working out there for, for 38, 40, 42 bucks an hour, you know, you're leaving way too much on the table. Breaking even. That's, yeah. I preached for the last three or four or five months here and then, you know, like, go back to Louisiana, you know, stand around there, listen to them guys talk. It's the first time I've ever been on a job set where everybody talks about retirement. Yeah. Our craters talk about retirement, welders talk about retirement, timeforms that, you know, talk about retirement, everybody talk about retirement. You know, some of them just needed to get that. Well, some of them, let's be honest, they ain't ever going to retire. They're always, no, they say they're going to just be done, but they ain't going to. Some of them love, love what they do, right? And so, yeah, they're still, they're still out there getting it. I wouldn't be doing it with the amount of credits a couple of them have, but, yeah, but, you know, yeah, my plan is hard to get out of the system. Yeah, but, you know, touching, touching on the healthcare, touching on the pinch and then both of those are really, really great things, right? But, but we got a third, we got a third, great thing, right? So the contractors contribute $8.50 an hour on the mainline jobs, two year 401(k). So, that matter if you put a nickel in it, the contractors put $8.50 an hour into it, that's part of your benefit package. You know, and you can put, you know, you can put up to $15 an hour in it on your own, you know, I think it's what 28,500, I think that a guy under 50 can contribute a year and then it's your over 50, then you, then you can add a, I think it's, I don't remember exactly what I think, 33, 5 or something like that. What was crazy is, you know, talking, talking to people, they're like, when I mentioned $8 an hour and they're like, well, do they match it? I'm like, oh, brother, that's what they're putting in. I ain't putting nothing in. Yeah, that's what they're paying me, or that's what they're paying my 401(k) per hour. Every hour. You know, and that's 60 hours in a week, you know, or a little bit more, a little bit less. That's, it's a lot of money. That's up quicker than what a lot of people think it does. And then like I said, like when I went up, you know, you go up North and you take $4 or $5 an hour, because you're going to miss it anyways, because it's, you know, it's crazy money. You know, if I, if I just knew my own pay, not even calculating in the truck, you know, just take the own pay and cut $4 an hour, it was still more money than I've ever made, you know, really not to, not bragging or anything. It's just the pay up there is good on the union side, you know, so. And so at that's $12 an hour, you know, four a month and eight of theirs, you know. Yep. And if it was a long job, I was, I was going to try to get to $16 an hour, you know, because I got some catching up to do, you know, like I've got a 401(k), but it's not 36 years old, I don't intend on welding until I'm 75. I've seen some guys doing it, but I don't know. I hear you. Yeah, and you're talking about that money's better up there. Yeah, $58 an hour on arm, you know, on the, on the mainline rates. It's good money. It's real good money, especially if you get to doing a little bit of, we talk about the premium pay, you know, back welding, and I didn't understand this when I first went down there, because we was welding on some crazy fittings, you know, and anybody knows that when you go to cutting fittings down to 30 and 40 degrees, they become flat and all along and all this stuff. Well, we're going here to back weld it, and you know, me and Greg was swapping up turns for days, you know, where we, I don't remember what the pay was down there, 53 or 51. What is it in Louisiana? - I think on that, I think it was 52. - Yeah, okay, so 52, premium pay is like 40s are 54 something dollars an hour. And getting that every other day, it kind of pumps them checks up a little bit specifically. You know, it was working 70 hours or 6, 12 is most, you know. - Yeah, so you get a $2 an hour premium for like running beads, you know, if you're in tie-in crew and you're running beads in hot passes on a production basin, you got people running out behind you, you get the $2 premium, you know, if you're doing hot work, you know, making hot cuts, making hot tie-ins, you get the $2 premium, and then like you referred to the back weld, that's $3, and the back weld and stacks. Back weld is the only premium that'll stack. So the back weld, back weld pay, the $3 goes on to what your rate was for that day. So if you're, if you're getting production paid $2 an hour and you back weld, so now you're gonna get $5 an hour. And that also, your helper also gets the premium pay when you back weld. - Correct, yeah, your helper goes in, your helper goes in and then they get the premium to help. - It's, you know, it's a numbers game and anything you're doing. I don't know, you know, like professional athletes, even they, you know, they don't go catch a football unless it's, you know, what the other receiver, or at least close to what the other receivers get paid. You know what I mean, like take the Dallas Cowboys losing my proportions, 'cause they paid more money in one place, you know. The business is business at the end of the day. And Weldon's Weldon, like I try to, I've told a lot of people, it's, you know, dropping your hoods the same Weldon, whether it's in the Red Dirt West Texas in the mud of Louisiana, or up in the Black Dirt of Minnesota, you know, it's the same, it's the same thing. I just, for me, couldn't stand the thought that somebody was making more money than me and I thought I could compete, you know, or at least, you'll give it to college, try to do that too. And plus, I don't, I need, you know, I don't, I'm still in pretty good shape, but I don't mind having a health insurance, you know. Talk about the 800 hours on health insurance. You know, it seems like such a big number, but it actually, you know, I done it in like 12 and a half, 13 weeks, something like that. It's pretty, it goes by a lot quicker. And then you're like, well, you gotta wait on insurance cards. I was in there, I'm in the first week to handle. - Yeah, yeah, the one thing, the PIBF, they're a well-dored machine up there, you know, and they get stuff out. As soon as your hours hit in there, they'll get stuff out. You know, and yeah, once you get your eligibility going, you know, it's basically 120 hours for months worth of insurance. You know, so typically, if you're working 60 hours a week, that's 240 a month, you know, so you're using one and you're banking one. And so you can bank up to a year out ahead of yourself. So 1440 hours would give you a year's worth of insurance. You know, so if you didn't want to take off or whatever, you know, if you didn't want to work through the winter for whatever reason, you know, it's not like, if you could afford the insurance on the nine union side, you know, when you get laid off, the insurance is done, right? - Right, and like-- - Unless you want to carry that code, right? - Unless, yeah. - When all of that code was crazy. - Yeah, no matter how you deal with it. - Yeah, but ours is, like I said, ours is through the PIBF benefit fund. It's not through the contractor. You know, and so with you able to bank it up ahead of you, if you want to take off a couple months or whatever, you don't have to worry about the laps in your insurance. - Right. - You know, so it's gonna be there. It's really good stuff. - The, and like say, mine started October 5th, right? That's the day that, so it'd be November the 5th, December the 5th, six months, right? 100 hours, my, under something hours be-- - Yep. - So you have us worth the insurance? - Six months for the insurance, yes. - So pretty much till June of April, May of next year. - Yep, but as soon as you go back to work, start to keep in eight hours, then you're just gonna keep, keep adding to your teal there. - All right, so we covered the benefits. Let's talk about the elephant in the room, it's out of work list, the scary, the will that concerns so many people on the planet. - Yeah, so the wheel, so the wheel is an ancient term, right, the wheel is a cuss word to me. And let's talk about the wheel. Right, so the way it used to work is a guy, you put yourself on the out of work, on the out of work wheel, and it was basically like a wheel revolving, okay? So when jobs come in, weather forming, call in, you know, like I need 10 welders, whatever day, what the test is, you know, and so, so the dispatcher goes in there and he calls number one. And you know, like, hey Ty, I got a job, such and such, you know, here's the wheel test, but about a being, and you had a choice, either take it or don't take it. And if you turned it down, then you would go to the bottom of the wheel, okay, and so that was a process that we had for a long, long time. Now, like I said, the wheel is a cuss word, now we have the out of work list, okay? And we have the job line. So what, what happens? The form is still calling, the form is still a quest, the same manpower that as they did before, but you, the member, causing on the job line, after 6 p.m. central, and they'll, they can apply for whatever job they want, right? So every job that's been called in for will be listed on the job line. There's also, you can look at it on the website, or you can call the number and listen to the automated, or listen to Jimmy Dick's voice on there. So, so if there's, you know, if there's four welding jobs on there and you wanna apply for a particular one, you can apply for a particular one. If you wanna apply for all of them, you can apply for all of them. And it doesn't matter if your number one or 1,000, whoever's the lowest number is gonna get it. You know, we've been seeing here lately, there's welders going out, you know, 900, 1,000, you know, and so yeah, people always refer to you well, you got all these people on the wheel. 11, 33 when I went to Louisiana, you know, and if for keeping tabs, I'm 11, 96 now, and that's five months, and I ran through my hours, we'll talk about the hour part here in a minute, went through my hours and boom, I mean, I'm already back almost 60 spots from where I was at to begin with, you know. Yeah, so, you know, the union is what you make of it, right? So the more you get involved, the more you participate, you know, 'cause we have guys all the time, the like, well, you know, I'm 1,000 on my out of work list, I'm like, well, have you looked and seen what numbers are going out on these jobs? Because why is the number inflated? So the numbers inflated is because we have a lot of guys that inspect, and that's what they do. They inspect, they're members, they're good paying members of the local, but they inspect, and they are not gonna take a welding job. They just, you know, they're still on my out of work list. Retires, right? Retires love to get the call blast. When, you know, when there's a job that goes on field and Jimmy puts out a call blast to all the welders, you know, and says, you know, such a such job when I feel it. They like to get it, you know, you talk to a retiree and you say, you know, hey, why are you on my out of work list? You know, they're like, well, we may get this, you know, there may be a job coming along and I want to take it, you know, right here close to home, I'm like, you ain't even cranked your weld machine in 10 years, you know, but, but, you know, and, and you gotta love the retirees 'cause they're the reason why we are here today to do what we're doing, you know, but it gives a false sense that, you know, there's all these people out of work, we're really not, you know. And if you're working building trades, we have, we got, you know, probably 300 guys that work building trades, you know, they're members of 7a8, but do they want to, do they want to work pipeline? They just the same work building trades. And so they are on the out of work list, you know, in case the, in case the pie in the sky job comes along and they want to jump on it. - Right. - You know, I think some of their inspection, you know, maybe they need to catch them hours back up on their, you know, maybe they want their insurance, you know, no telling, but it's not near, it can seem overwhelming the first time you, the first time you get on it, you know. 'Cause you look at all the numbers and you're like, "Oh, you know, Jesus, what did I get myself into?" - Yep. - But then it, you know, like, it cycles through a lot fashion. If you watch the numbers, like, I would call you and I'd be like, "Ah, this went out, you know, this number." You know, and I could have went out early, way earlier in the year, you know, if I'd wanted to, 'cause there were some high numbers that went to some jobs. - Yep. - Some good jobs. - Yeah, and some good jobs. And I passed on, you know. Reds brother had that good job, I probably could have went for some of the numbers that went out to that job. But everything happens for reason and it worked out how I needed to work out. And another thing that they always talk about, well, nobody's gonna tell me when I'm going to work or where I'm going to work at, you know, it's, I don't understand where that whole mentality's built at. Yeah, I mean, our work is predominantly the Northeast and Midwest, open that part of the region, you know. But nobody's telling you you got to go and turn to it. You know, they're having a soul on the planet, it told me, "You got to cure your asthma in a soda, you know, nobody told me that, I wanted to go to Minnesota." - Exactly. - I like that part of the work, you know, I like to work up there. - Yep. And that's why the out-of-work list is a whole lot better than the, oh, wheel concept, because the only thing is on you to apply for the job, right? If you don't apply for the job, you're not gonna get it. You know, and so yeah, nobody's telling you to go anywhere, but the whole nobody's telling me to go to work somewhere. I mean, you know? I don't care union non union when that well boss calls you or that water forming calls you and says hey I got a job here. Do you want to come you make a decision right then and there whether you're union or non union Are you going so so tip so that guy's telling you where you're going to go to work if you agree to go there And so there's no difference union or non union and maybe some of that that that mindset comes from the old out of work you know the old will maybe that's some of that comes from there you know that's You know like I'm always Harping you know that we want a big thumbprint in Texas, and I don't ever you know I know we got the big jobs in Texas going stuff So we do got thumbprint there, but I just want that little you know I want that a little bit more and not because I care to work in Texas, but I know I mean I don't mind working in Texas But I know a lot of guys straddle the fence because there used to be in that west Texas and they're from east Texas, you know Vos versa. They're from central Texas and they're working in southeast Texas, you know, yep, and so I mean it's coming. I mean obviously we've we've got the door right we got a foot jammed door frame of it Before we get too carried away. Yeah, let's talk about the 300 What is it? Three hundred four fifty and six. I would yeah, yeah, so so when you take a job when you take a dispatch Or contract tire when you when you go to work if you're on a National Pipeline Agreement job, so what's referred to as a high school job, right? If you work less than 300 hours You're gonna and once you get laid off you've got five days to put yourself back on out of work with Okay, that's your response. That's your response me. Everybody's all back in there within five days of being laid off Get on the website and do it. It's simple. Yeah, yeah If you don't do it within five days, you're gonna go to the bottom of the list But if you do do it within five days and you did not break the 300 hour mark You're gonna we're gonna go right back where you are and what I mean by that So just say that you were number one thousand and fifty people got this passed out while you were gone, right? You're not still at the thousand. You're gonna go to nine fifty, right? So you're you're still maintaining your stuff But vice versa if some guys that You know that that was around that same number Come off of a job and they didn't have their hours yet. Well, it might bump you up a few Yes, you might you might you might go back or just yeah, yeah And then if you work if you work an intermediate job, then it's 450 hours That you know and then if you work if you work a low-scale job The 80% work integrity work station work something like that then you get 600 hours before you roll off Now if you work a combination thereof Then then you know it may be 450 hours, you know if you work a low-scale and a high-scale Yeah, cuz they kind of when I went to Louisiana they call that low-scale and it was 53 dollars an hour So I had 600 hours to play with you know, and then and then you know I took a premium or a high-scale job when I went to Minnesota. Yeah Yeah, cuz Jimmy Dicks like I think you're over your hours and I was like I don't know You know, yeah, but it worked out it worked out for me to get what I accomplished what I need to get accomplished But yeah, when they say low-scale. They're low-skills Not our loose our low-scale. Yeah, our low-scale is still better than the best non-year scale. Yeah, about four, but And like you know some of the guys talk about You know, they sometimes you move a little bit on that number like earlier, you know it like your style was at 1200 today I'm at 11 Something but you know you there's kind of floats a little bit as guys come off job and guys takes job or guys take job Fellas go to work, you know, so it kind of kind of always moves, but it's never really a stagnant thing Cuz you know it like last time when I was on the out of work list before you know, I It felt quick when April guy here, you know, I was zooming down the numbers Uh And ever a lot of high, you know a lot of higher numbers going to work, you know like the the job in Texas There were a lot of 900s and thousands that you know come to that job Or went to that job and it's the same concept for helpers, you know, the numbers are a lot lower, you know They are you know, it's a shorter lit. I don't know, you know Well, I guess because if you got retirees, you know, then you got a helper for a retiree, you know what I mean Which which we took y'all took in helpers this year, you know, yep so And we're important taking in some weld welders and I think a lot of you know, I get I get that thing about well, how did I get a book and stuff, you know, and that Shady business, I'm just kidding Not really shady business, so Um, yeah Do you want do you talk about how do you get a book? Yeah, yeah, like how I got mob yeah, yeah, we can talk about that Yeah, you know, so so there's there's Really two ways to get a seven ninety eight book You know one is Well first off you got to have application on the website right but the first way is if we have a job that goes on field by the members yet Right so so there's been a job put out there for dispatch nobody applied for it And it goes on field okay, so then Business agents organizer somebody somebody's going to get the opportunity to fill that job Um, you know business agent could could actually send a member there, but you know, that's an opportunity where or you can bring a non-union guy in, you know So an on you guy could get a call and says hey, we got a job, you know It's over here. They're working six tens Whatever, you know, the weldant test is X, you know, so they and they'll tell you if there's any special requirements Whatever and if if you accept the job then you go where our dispatch policy reads is you get dispatch today You got to leave tomorrow travel at least five hundred miles a day until you get to the job site So, you know, say if it's seven hundred miles, you know, you're gonna leave in the morning You're gonna drive tomorrow the next day and then the third day Seven o'clock you're gonna be looking at that sturt, you know, we're drivers license Social security card. Yeah, well, you won't have a UA card at this time. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's so yeah You're gonna get signed up with the gonna get signed up with the sturt You're gonna get signed up with the payroll department and then you're gonna go out there and you're gonna take that take the test whatever it may be You know every job It's different, you know, sometimes you take take a 12 inch bell hold 12 inch wrench, you know, sometimes you You know, you test on the line, but you know 36 inch seven feet. Well, whatever it may be, you know It's up to it's up to that contractor. What you're gonna test on or maybe up to the gas company, you know, what you're testing on But you go you go test, you know, you make the test once you've worked 80 hours and you're eligible for membership And so, you know, then the onus is on you again. You're gonna get eight day letter. You may all that letter in Either immediately or by the end of the job and that starts your 45 day process That you have to pay for the book So that's one to second ways come in through the organizing department, you know, if if we're out here and and you know, there's a there's a group of welders and helpers Working for a particular contractor and they won't they won't local 790 represent them then we will Will come in will will represent you will you know if if the majority of them won't want us to represent will ask the contractor for voluntary recognition You know the contractor says no then we'll file with the National Labor Relations Board and and we'll go to an election and if the majority of the welders and helpers there Do vote yes for the union then you know, we we sit down and we bargain with that contractor and all and so yeah And that's how I ended up in the seat. I'm in that's how you ended up Yeah, all because all because some guys stopped by a fab yard note to you one morning Yeah, the I think we covered I'm going to go back to you know your jump from you know, it's not they call it politics Like we have politics in the 798 Kind of a thing yep, but you know, there's you know, there's there's a lot of moving parts still learning a lot about a lot of things you know like The inside garden all this it's a lot of stuff to you don't have to learn it all in one day But a lot of stuff to keep up with you know like we have the president, you know Shannon Jackson and we have business agents, you know, then we have Business manager and then we have the treasure we have all this stuff, you know all these different People to keep up with you politics if you will I don't know I don't know it's because it's kind of like a kind of corporation You know, it is kind of a way, you know, but you know people get appointed to certain positions, you know, it's It's a lot it's a lot of moving parts to make it happen, you know, and I don't know that anybody's Where about the leadership change that's taking place really right now. I don't get that No, I don't think anybody's really worried about it. No, you know Danny Hendrix has been our business manager for 19 years and he's he's retiring out You know January I think night will be his last day, you know, Justin Wallace, which is our financial secretary now He's running for business manager unopposed You know and David Butterworth, which is a business agent force And in the Northeast, you know David ran for financial secretary the spot that Justin had and he's unopposed as well and you know it's uh we got all the confidence and in the world and both of those guys you know to to keep leading us forward you know we've we got some really good business agents you know our organizing team has has grown over the last three years and we got some really good guys on there you know and then you got like said Shannon um he's he's our president you know there's a full house of candidates for for the examining board for the executive board and for the finance committee and that's healthy that's healthy for the local to have a lot of people feel like they can get engaged you know and be able to run for these offices you know you have to be a member in good standing for two years to be able to run for office you have to be a member in good standing for one year to be eligible to vote you know and so you know this now you can vote yeah and you know it's uh the locals in a really good spot you know Danny took over back in oh seven you know and then and in and and oh eight the you know the pipeline world went crazy you know the rest of the rest of the world was in a depression you know starting market crash and they built in pipelines like there's no tomorrow you know when Danny took over seven on eight was in it was in dire straits you know I think we had a million dollars in our in our general fund and our you know our payroll was more than that and so we were we were in trouble and Danny came on David Barnett came on his financial secretary with him and you know the work blew up you know they just poured the money in the market as it was going down and then when the market rebounded you know we just uh all our funds got healthy you know work with work was good for for a long long time and so yeah we're in a really really good shape right now you know looking at the future we're looking you know with this data center you know everybody's got one of these phones and you know AI is here or do you like it or you don't you know these data centers they're building them all over the country data centers have to have reliable power only source of reliable power we got some natural gas which creates a pipeline creates a compressor station creates a powerhouse you know so there's tons of work for you eight members whether it's whether it's on the pipeline side or whether it's on the building trade side so you know we're looking we're looking to just just keep the momentum going in the right direction and keep growing you know we've worked hard you mentioned Texas we worked hard on increasing our market share in Texas and Louisiana you know we had two really good jobs this year in Louisiana we got we got three jobs uh in Texas you know two of them still going down there you know and and we've fought hard to try to get back into that market you know when we left that market it it's it sucked a vacuum you know and the contractors continue to pay less and less right and on but you know it's not we're we're not leaving Texas right we're not we're here to stay you're gonna keep seeing us you you know you call it the F-150 parade if you want to I don't care what you call us right and if you don't like $7.98 you can drag you know join $7.99 join whatever you want to join right but the thing is is you know you mentioned it you and I talk about this all the time well done well done well why in the world do you want to make 50 bucks an hour less total package right because because Joe contractor don't want to pay you right you know I look at this way too if take associated if they're willing to pay that kind of money in Louisiana they're not in the business to lose money they're in the business to make money exactly you know what I mean they're not gonna pay that dollar amount if they're you know they're $7.98 contractor if they're losing money they're not gonna do the business you know they wouldn't be doing the work if they thought they was gonna go into a job and lose money I mean obviously on any construction site things can happen you know that's gonna cost you money like like a drill getting stuck there's things is gonna happen but if they're if they can pay that and they're not even as big as you know a certain non-union contractor that does a lot of work you know a lot of big lines and stuff I understand they're not in the market to lose money either but there's a big there's a big profit margin for somebody and it ain't the you know it ain't the hands doing an actual job they come out there and buy your pizza and act like you're you're rather off or you know but and another you know another thing that I thought was just mind blowing is hearing some of the rumors about how the jobs was going in Louisiana which I wasn't on the Del Ha job but I was on the you know the the associate associate a job down there and they're like the repair rates to the roof and blah blah I think we had four repairs the whole job you know I know the repair world and I'm pretty sure he done a lot of other things you know yeah he uh spent a lot of time I don't know what he did but he done he built some dogs for he spent a lot of time doing everything but repair well repair well yeah he's done a lot of stuff just wasn't that you know yeah but it was just crazy to hear some of them rent you know and yeah and you're partaking in it and it's not you know I have heard the same thing about some non-union jobs I've been on there like all the repair rates went through the roof you know it's I don't understand the the attack of welders and welders you know and I've been guilty of myself and I'm trying to be better about it you know whether it's to try to lift everybody up you know I don't want to be a gatekeeper because you know you kind of it's not it's not like a bad thing but you kind of get you kind of get that sense periodically you know from from welders you know that we you know we find something good and we kind of try to keep it to ourselves you know like I got a weld number for a weld boss you know this job's going on I know he's something welders but I'm not gonna share the number you know and I think you by that knows me knows that I'll give you the number you want at least one time yeah when I get a second down would you get it one time you know but I think you nailed it you know it's it's these contractors you know I mean union contractors yeah they're making money they are but they're not making astronomical money that the non-union contractor is making you know because you know labor's typically 40% of your job you know and if you're paying 50 bucks an hour total package less than what the union sides paying you know where's that money going right that money that money's going in Joe owners pocket is where that money's going you know so they're making they're making these astronomical profit margins where the union contractor you know they're they're bidding it as cheap as they can you know to get their foot back in the door and get you know and and it's crazy you know they'll they'll spend a non-union companies will spend you know I think they spend on average like four hundred million dollars a year on union busters right where we the UA you know we spent over 300 million on training so would you would you rather work for a company that invest in you the employee the member or would you rather would you rather work for a company that hires a fancy Nancy Lawyer they want to do everything to keep the worker from getting paid what they deserve and the working conditions that they deserve and ain't sure the benefits that they deserve right it's money it's just what what pocket you gonna put it in right you know I prefer it to be a month me too and another thing we kind of hit on it for a second you know the you know what a rig truck was entailed to have when you come to a job site or after being on a couple seven on the eight job sites you know and we're not saying this is always the case because I've seen you know there's times some of them built mudboards and gave rod bucks used to be a time one of them gave you umbrellas and all sorts of stuff but you know it's one of those things once this I think this will resonate with me for as long as I continue this career and I just heard it does you know from my brother in law Louisiana if you give it up you're never getting back exactly you know so at one point you know the first time I worked for these people that gave all this stuff and then they stopped and then when you go back to work for them don't expect that again because it's not coming back and I don't know because I think about that all the time even even doing union you know union business now dealing with these contracts stuff I feel like I'm very inquisitive because I want to make sure that I'm not giving up something that somebody else and work to get us you know I want to make sure I'm not giving that up or are not going about it the right way how we're supposed to do that business about it you know that's the that's the power of a collected bargain agreement right so we have that agreement in place that says this is our this is our wages this is our benefits this is our conditions and and it's there for a reason you know I mean we love our union contractors right but would they pay them any that they got to pay if we didn't have that if we didn't have that contract huh you know I mean just just just on the on the other side you know they they decide over the weekend I want to cut I want to cut you two dollars an hour you know there's nothing you can do about it right you either take it or you quit yep right and I'm not advocating for either one but I believe I believe that the that the American Rig welder has got to realize that they are especially and if if you don't realize that what you got not everybody can do then you're missing a boat. The sooner that you realize it you're gonna realize that you got the power in your hand right you don't just got to sting in your hand you got a power because can't everybody weld that pie and whenever the welders can realize that and the welders can all get together and grasp that concept the wetter can get paid with the wetter desires. Well you talk about the the 2008 range being really good for the union it was really good for the non-union welder you know like that's like I know a lot of guys in that same age bracket you know I mean I was just graduating high school obviously but I've been around a lot of guys and on the non-union side that's in that bracket and you know that I think the skill level of them welders or waste are a lot more superior and a lot of ways than what is the past you know I agree five six seven years you know it's just I mean even for me I don't you know them the craftsmanship on both sides of the fence back then was a lot it was you know it was a it was a whole lot different ballgame you know the like you take the John Brooks and you know the Quentin Fords and Greg Beards of the world you know it if you put them all in the same rotto you wouldn't know who's union who ain't you know because just the way that them guys carry themselves a someplace it got kind of got lost and I think a lot of that's that revolving door of West Texas you know I agree and that kind of you know it's a source subject and it should be a it should be a really source subject to anybody that that really cares in you know cares about it it's not just for some of us this is not just getting the title of being a pop line like I truly yeah you know love being a pop line welder and you know it and it kind of stinks the you know that whole yep the ball that is West Texas yeah and I broke out in West Texas yep I got out of it that's a good yeah you go but you you go back to the 08 air back in you know 07 08 09 back in there the wages were not that much difference between the union and non union welders right the wages wages were very similar the benefits of always been different you know but but but the actual R&P was was very very similar right and so the difference is the R&P on the 9U side hasn't changed and from what I understand it actually digressed after COVID it went down right where where with us right we've been getting raises all the way along to keep up with inflation you know inflation is up you know what 57% I think since since 08 and the wages are still the same you know so you know you've lost you've lost 40 something percent of your buying power you're still making the same money you know pickups are more expensive well machines are denser more expensive you know but but your abilities are still worth 2008 wages yeah that make any sense you know and then you know you hit on West Texas you hit on the quality I mean I had a conversation with a with a pretty prominent guy on the 9U side here while back and my take on it is it's the helper pay right you're paying a guy 15 16 you know maybe 17 bucks and hour 80 hundred dollars a day for them like I can't make a living on the road you know it's not in West Texas no you can't he can't make a living so so here are either one so what do they do right they get in it they realize that hey I can't make a living so you know they they find them they find them a beater truck you know they find them find them an old 200 somewhere right and they weld like hell and they break out welding right and so what were they well for yeah well for anything right $35 is a is a heck of a ways they just double their income you know and they're gonna get $16 for this for this for this this ragally truck and this well machine you know because that's the only thing they can afford you know and so so when that happens you're deteriorating the skill level for one but you're not doing anything to raise the wages right the wages are just gonna stay stagnant I mean I was that guy 15 you know well I mean then I get it because I mean you know you're trying to survive as a helper right right if they'll get the helper wages for 13 and 72 so that's a little bit oh my goodness yeah but if the helper wages would get to where a guy can make a living as a helper then the welder wages are gonna come out they put them closer to what are level wages for you know that 19 to 21 22 dollar an hour yeah you know so the 19 dollars is as low as we go right that's that's our low-scale wage you know but it also goes up all the way to 38 dollars you know we've got we and not so much now but we had career helpers you know that guys for whatever reason you know they never want to break out of the welder responsibility they need to go space and or the welder out yeah to be a journeyman it's a lot of responsibility you know and but a lot of guys if you're just gonna have one kid you know and you manage your money right you know you know I mean it's a comfortable living yeah if you're making if you're up there working six yards at 38 you know now getting a hundred dollars per damn and stuff you know yeah or even you're at 30 you know there's we get so high on our horse as a whole on the pipeline industry when there's people that survive at 14 dollars an hour not even getting 40 hours a week at McDonald's you know but we get we're such a custom to a standard you know I mean some in some instant standards not high enough you know but it's it's a it's crazy how how we hold our so you know yeah and some of us need to remember that there's a lot of them that you know okay the well balls for instance right for the non union side well they're getting paid you know four five dollars an hour extra and I'm sure they're getting some kickbacks and stuff here here and there you know but still still in a grand scheme of things you're you really only ever breaking even still at that you know it's compared to the union welder you know or to the 798 welder you're still you're still not getting paid what you work for the headache you're dealing with you know you're babysitting you know you're going to have you're gonna have your not so good group you know or not you guys don't have enough experience or they don't have the right equipment yet group we'll say that and you're gonna have your your middle of the pack group and then you're gonna have your good welders you know and you like we do the 5050 rule you know 50 dispatch 50 contract you know well it don't in in our line of work it kind of gives them or in our business 798 business kind of gives some guys that are like if you was breaking out like if you broke out over here and say you you know you dispatched him with the right contract welder well you got a good chance to you know to stick around and gain you know more experience you know like we do the torque in and all that stuff and then compared to the non-union side if you're in that lower in you know middle of the pack lower in well when the job's on you know you're kicking rocks you know I think it's a good thing I you know I've been fortunate enough you know that you know the two times I dispatched out I've been with guys that been in for you know for a long time are good while good welders that could kind of you know kicking you know show me the ropes a little bit which going to Minnesota was different than Louisiana because you know going down into Louisiana all I knew is what you know the bits and pieces that I've took from everybody to go into that deal you know still got trouble a few times for some things but small things but learning characters learning curves you know like let my helper cut the straps how the branch got in trouble for that not really in trouble just you know we're supposed to cut our own straps on the branch also we'll say that if the stewards available he cuts your straps out of your bellhole for you so the guys are like me that don't really worry about the bellhole you can continue on to your branch and then you can fall back and clean those straps up which gives you kind of unfair advantage if you even if I didn't have faith in myself I still would be cutting the branch you know cleaned up ready to weld on no matter what but it's and like don't want to get us in water prior to seven o'clock got you know got in trouble for that but it's you know like I said earlier somebody fought for it to be that way you know so we don't want to regress exactly speak yeah yeah all those all those conditions that we have right so much somebody fought for I mean and there's even times where people died for these conditions that we have you know and we don't want to be the ones to give them up right you know we want to make sure that we hold hold the standard like I said before you know I mean we we have an obligation to to withhold the union rules but we also have obligation to the contractor to provide them with a fair fair days work and is there a point or a lesson? and at this stage of your career, to kind of get back into that part of it. You've been in long time, just in the pop line industry, long time, not to tie it to the '78, but just you've been in a long time like this part of your career, what's a solid piece of advice? - I would say to learn everything you can, pay attention, work for multiple people. You know, don't pigeonhole yourself to just being in one spot. And especially, you come over to the union. The union is about what you make it. Good attitude, good work ethic. Get involved, right? We have union meetings in Tulsa. Come to the meetings, right? Come meet the people that run the local. Come meet the welder bosses, the waterformers that are gonna be there. Just come get involved. And for me, it was really about learning everything you can along the way. And I've had some great opportunities throughout my career. And it was because I learned from different things. We used to have, we used to have what's called a third helper, in tie-ins. And so what the third helper did, would get the leads and stuff, get the ends cleaned up, make the cuts, help line the pipe up. And at a very young age, I learned how to tie a pipe, because there was no old tie-in, and Joe Birchfield, that would sit on the bank and puff on that marble. And I was 19 at the time, I think. And he's like, "Boats about time, you learn how to tie in." And so Joe would let me make the fit. And of course, I'd screw plenty of 'em up. And Joe would be like, no, no, no, not that one picked that other tractor up. And so you just keep learning along the way. And I think that's what it is, anything you're doing. You just absorb the knowledge, right? Right, the guys with the gray hair. Check out the guys with the gray hair. I mean, they're that for a reason. Now I'm one of the guys with the gray hair, but, you know, it's led to a great career for me. I've got, like I said, I got to do a lot of really good stuff throughout my career, got to be able to influence a lot of people, you know, and with the job I have now, you know, we get to change lives. But, you know, we get to take somebody that's been on the nine-union side and, you know, got little, little to no hope of making a living as a helper. And they come over here on this side, you know, and we actually just got done with our regional meetings. And I got to meet four of them in person for the first time that I talked to on the phone, you know, two and a half years ago, you know, first time we get to see face to face. So, yeah, just absorb everything you can. Or you could be like me and just pick up the phone and call a business agent that you met a year ago and be like, "Hey, I'm Tom and I just wanted to, you know, call you up and talk to you." And he's like, "Yeah, we met last year at your wedding competition." I called Todd and he was like, "That's right, that is right." That's it. So, I just wanted to, you know, put my name in your ear, I got my northern papers, you know, back and blah, blah, blah. Just, you know, it never hurts to pick up the phone call. Yep, when you talk about those papers, right? That's a big thing. That's one thing that we do, right? We have our well-data sheet. And so, when a guy does have papers, you know, you can report in there and tell him what papers you have when the expiration is, because, you know, when you got emergency callouts and stuff, you know, they're looking for guys that got papers. They need people to roll right now, you know. And so, if we know that Todd Linker has papers for an orphaner and there's an emergency callout, you know, their business agent's gonna come hunt you. I got three different names, you know, it could be Tyler, Tyrell or Tylin. That's right. One of the three. Corn who's talking to you. That's Corn who's talking to you with that data, yeah. Is there anything else you want to cover that we have not covered? I don't feel like you want to get out there. It's been a lot of information. There has been a lot of information. Especially the day we've had. It's been a whole day of talking. Yeah. What do we talk about? We were talking about something. We talked about something at dinner there. I was telling, what was I saying at dinner? Okay, I wanted to throw in there. I can't remember exactly what it was right now, but we have covered a lot today. We talked about a lot at dinner. We did, yeah, but it was, it was, you know, what the heck? I had to ask, I might have to ask Caitlin what it was, but yeah, it was directed to Andrew. I can't remember, I might have been, when I was on that text, it may have been. I know, I think probably the main point, you know, that people need to understand. And you've preached it, I've preached it, and it seems to be more and more people are preaching it now. It's welding, it's welding, right? Why do the non-union contractors think that the non-union welder is worth so much less than union welder, right? You got the same truck, you got the same machine, you weld to the same procedure, same rods, you're doing the exact same thing, you're probably welding about the same amount every day. So why, why are they worth $50 an hour less total package? And I think another thing, you know, do your research, y'all say that a lot too, you know? Do the research, you know, we got a whole website that's wide open to everybody, you know? And it welding is welding. I think I'm gonna put that on a t-shirt, stickers, everything, welding is welding with, you know, $7.98 to get to bottom of it. I mean, welding is welding. - Exactly. - It's all about, you wanna get paid more money to do it, then there's now it for it, you know? There's like getting your applications in, like I got, I won't call no names, but, you know who you are, plenty of y'all have got with me about turning in applications, or, you know, who I talk to, all that stuff, you know? And sometimes it's just about questions, you know, I can't answer all the questions, but luckily I know, and got some phone numbers that are great resources to ask questions too, so anybody can feel free to slide into my direct messages. If you got my cell phone number, text me, whatever. And I'll put you in contact with some people to talk to. It's not gonna make your babies come out purple or be born naked or anything. It's, you know, it's just, it's having a conversation, you know, about your future. And I've been called brainwashed, and it's not, I wouldn't say brainwashed, it's just, I can only speak of my experience dealing with it. And, you know, I, like I said, it's only been two jobs, 13, 14 weeks, I know the dollar amount that I was paid, was pretty dog-owned crazy, I know what, got my 401k, I know that I have insurance now. And I know the people that I'm at, you know, they don't, they, a lot of them guys come shake your hand, you know, they just wanna get to know you, more than anything, it's kind of, kind of strange, kind of oddbally 'cause it kind of makes you feel like church. But, yeah, for some of us it can be an uncomfortable situation because they genuinely just want to get to know you and a lot of, a lot of questions out the gate, you know, but they ain't, they're not, they're not doing it to go, well, I don't think, I doubt that it's that way. You know, like some people come at you with a bunch of questions stuff 'cause they want to know what to use against you, but it's not that feeling, you know, but a lot of guys ask a lot of questions, you know, they want to know how your mom and I am is, you know, that's the other thing, you know. - Yep, and I'd also say, you know, for the, for the non-union guy, right, make your own decision, right? Get it, get an informed opinion, right? So, that non-union contractor, they're gonna talk bad about the union because they don't wanna pay you benefits. They don't wanna pay you what you're worth, right? They, they wanna keep you browbeat down. And the union is not, it's not perfect, it's not all roses and rainbows, right? And back in the '60s, you know, they did some bad things. There's no doubt about it, but that's not, that's not where we are today, right? We, the team of organizers, we fight for workers rights every day, whether it's union or non-union, we're fighting for everybody's rights. So, you know, if you see one of our guys, talk to 'em, right? I mean, we're open book, we're gonna tell you the cold hard truth about what it is, you know, and we're trying to make a better way for you, whether you wanna come over or not, like we said. Well, then it's well done. You should make the same money, right? Don't listen, don't listen to the guys that would rather pay a lawyer than to pay to train you. Yup, right? I mean, it's as simple as that. Where are they putting their money? Are they investing in the employer? Are they investing in the employee? Yup. Right, we're all about investing in the employee, the American worker. Does the money's going someplace? The money's going someplace, yeah. Well, I appreciate you coming up for the, for the welding event, you know, we got the third and final day in the morning or a welding competition right off the gate. Yeah, look, I mean, I need, I need to go to Tulsa for some meetings, but, you know, 20, 26 is gonna be a great year, you know, for the pipeline industry as a whole, it looks like, and hit the button. building trade side, so I appreciate you coming up, Chad, and all that you try to accomplish for me. I'm not just a needy welder, I'm a needy and a lot of other things, so I appreciate it. Yeah, we're here to help. Yeah, and somebody needs to reach out, give them my number or whatever they can find us on social media. I'll talk to anybody about anything. Sure. All right. Thank you, Ty. Yep. [BLANK_AUDIO]