1,000+ Line Up in Queens to Apprentice as Plumbers, Make Much More Than Us

By Roy Edroso Mon., Aug. 24 2009 at 1:08 PM

Categories: Events, Featured, Labor

New Yorkers know a good thing when they see it, and this morning more than a thousand of them turned up for the chance to become a plumber's apprentice. The 8,000 hour gig is rigorous, but you come out of it with a useful trade that is relatively unaffected by booms and busts. One guy told NY1, "You work five years, you make $50 dollars an hour. I don't know anybody who would turn that down."

Folks have been camping out on line since Friday; some put up tents to protect themselves from the elements. Only of a fraction of the line-standers will make it, so cops were nervous about crowd control, but there has been no report of a riot at the Local 1 HQ in Long Island City, which opened its doors at 8 a.m.

With higher education getting more and more expensive and white-collar trades such as ours increasingly unstable, we're only surprised more people didn't show. Let's face it: college is an even worse idea now than it was when we went to it. If your children are of age, somehow convince them they're slow and hand them some kind of a toolkit. They'll thank you for the rest of their lives.

Email to Friend