From the Apprenticeship Coordinator

As with the rest of you it’s been a strange year working in and out of the Union office building. We had some short term unemployment and had a half dozen apprentices off that only lasted a month or two then we started putting on apprentices on a weekly bases replacing guys that were retiring for reasons that seemed to be partly due to the pandemic.

Classes started back up in September and we have been spraying the building with “Pure FX” from Jensen Equipment that kills Covid as well as E. coli,, staph, and Listeria and wear masks while social distancing. So far we have done well and don’t see any spreading in the school. We did have two apprentices that were in class that contacted Covid, they sat out 14 days then returned.

The E-board decided to forgo the hands-on Journeyman testing and require only the written test to complete their apprenticeship on the Union end. The hands on-journeyman test that we use was put in place during the time that the Insulators were going to have a state license. It’s not a part of our registered apprenticeship program with the state, so it does not affect your completion on my end. Some of you are getting behind on your on-line time card, which can cause problems that would affect your apprenticeship contract if you don’t stay on top of that. Please let me know if you are having any issues with the International Web-site.

We have a group of new apprentices that just completed OSHA 30 the week of Thanksgiving that was given by our OSHA instructor Business Agent Mr. Robert Potter. These members have started during and have been working though our new normal, with health safety issues that we are all adjusting to.

Mr. Allen Marshall, Mr. Dakota Smock, Mr. Alex Hoffman, Mr. Loyd Guzior, Mr. Andrew Roch, Mr. Logan Peot, Mr. Adam Sawyer, Ms. Toni Nofal, Mr. Anthony Adrian, Mr. James Peterson and Mr. Josh Spardone. Please welcome and look over our new brothers and sister on the job sites.

I hope you and your family have a great Christmas and a better New Year!

Fraternally,

Craig Stevens