"Presently, there are 200 journeymen and 12 apprentices out of work in the area. And apprentices apparently don't get laid off unless things are really bad."
This is true. However, the number of men on the book is relative to the size of the local. For example, those numbers in my local would be horrendously bad unemployment and I have never seen that many men on the book. But in say local 11 (Los Angeles) that would be full employment or a walk through as they say.(except for the apprentices) The difference is that my local has about 600 members where LA has more than 7000 last I knew. A certain percentage of the journeyman on book 1 have no intention of taking a call because they are working as inspectors or in maintenance jobs or something non wireman related and are keeping their place on the book just in case. In my local that number is about 40. It seems to be a pretty common percentage in other locals too. How many members are there in the local you are applying to? How long is it taking to get a call off book 1?

Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions. They don’t generally like union related issues here because they tend to become a pretty hot topic to say the least. [Linked Image] Good luck to you.