Letters to the Editor
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Deregulation answer? Not really...
AskDong: If the problem is that utilities are regulated, are you saying that if we deregulate distribution and transmission, that wages for line technicians will rise to where they become attractive to young applicants?
Not bloody likely. As the IBEW and other ultility worker unions have pointed out, deregulation has generally meant a free for all, increasing consolidation and so-called economies of scale down to the wire. The reality is, however, that the power companies have mostly avoided, as much as possible, any real investment in physical plant or labor force since such deregulation took effect. Theres no incentive to redo 50 year old power lines, when you can charge the same for them as you can a brand new, stable set of wiring.
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Let the wires fall to ground
THEN the market will more or less pick up the wages to compensate people to do that work. Or, we'll call in the Army Corp of Engineers. Whichever. I would guess, and it's only a guess, that the utilities don't hire, they just contract that work out locally. And the local contractor probably is a taskmaster who does more or less competent work for the lowest bid. IF the local contractor can fill the contract he'll stretch it out to fit the labor he has. Localities are all NIMBY anyway so there's never an actual rush to put NEW lines up. Yeah, let the lines fall. Screw it.
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I have some questions
Lineman is a physically demanding job. What happens to linemen when they start to get old? Do they have a shot at moving into management positions, or do their employers just dump them and replace them with younger people? What kind of jobs can linemen get after they're too old to be linemen anymore?
I don't know the answers to these questions, but the lack of people seeking lineman careers suggests that the answers are not pretty. I sure as heck wouldn't want a job that left me unemployed with no useful skills long before I was ready to retire.
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And We Are Listening to What Jeff Sessions Says Because . . ?
Any takers? The bottom line is that Jeff Sessions has balls as big as melons to be taking anyone to task for their work ethic or lack of commitment - I mean the guy IS a U.S. Senator.
The average white collar worker can whine all they want about the knuckle-breaking work they do (and yes, I have worked in offices for years, so please don't try to snow me with any horror stories), and yes, the stress levels can be incredible, but it is mostly because a lot of white collar work is useless, nonproductive and soul-sucking, which is why so many white collar employees think they should be paid good bucks for it.
Blue collar workers have been ridiculed, and condescended to for years, and for the most part didn't care because they made a decent wage and had job security. As many posters have pointed out, the average blue collar worker now faces the constant threat of layoff, pension fraud, and a pay scale that is only decent if they want to work 70 hrs. a week.
Well, white collar workers face the same thing you may say, which is exactly the point. If one is going for a crappy, soul-sucking job where nobody respects them and they face constant layoffs and pay cuts, wouldn't most people go for the job with the air conditioning? Jeff Sessions did.
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I am a 39 year old Engineer
I don't make $53,000 a year. If Florida power companies were to offer that job to me, I would take it. The arguments made for why people do not want these jobs are stupid. And, they are the same tired arguments based on nothing. The crap about there not being enough science people is a lie to bring in cheaper workers from abroad. Companies do not want to pay for American workers in technology - look at the number of computer specialists that cannot get jobs because their coding is in COBOL or another out dated system These people are qualified to be trained. But, companies will not hire people to be trained. They are all about the stock price and the dividend.
It is like the time I spent determining if I could be a math or science teacher. I had more math than most of the teachers at the schools I substituted in, but the state (Ohio) put multiple roadblocks in my path to certification. I had applied math to real problems not the contrived stuff you find in books (which I could work and explain as well). But, it would take two more years of schooling before I could look for a job. And, there weren't that many jobs available.
It is all propaganda and greed that drive these stories.
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Its numbers
The current line men are mostly from the Baby Boom generation - that LARGEST demographic group in the country. It is not true that later generations are lazy, unmotivated spoiled brats. There are just fewer of them. A LOT fewer of them. So if the largest demographic in our history is retiring were do you get replacements? From one of the smallest demographic groups - healthy folks from 20-30? Look at the census and see how small a group that is - its the group where the Boombers forgot to have kids, or delayed -- causing an adnomally small group.
Not to mention what else do you notice about the 20-30 year old group -- you know that lazy bunch of so and so? Oh, yeah 100,000+ have been fighting a war -- perhaps being in Iraq makes it hard to take a lines man job, and when they come back, it doesn't sound like a lot of them will be in shape to deal with the real world.
Then the stupid drug on war -- pretty much giving a criminal record to the minority population in this age range over something that should be legal -- but bars them from college financial aid - ever, bars them from most jobs - forever....
You can't find the workers, not because they are lazy, but because they don't exist. There are not enough people in the 20-30 range in existence, and some of them are in Iraq, some in college, and some in other careers all competing with this and every other industry looking at soon to be mass retirements of the boomers.
And the 100,000 -- I work for a power company -- bull.
And you will work at 3am in an icestorm for as many hours as it takes, some people will get killed -- and the benefits (health, dental... go down every year) there is no career path and it doesn't pay that much until you've been doing it for decades.
Seniority in the union matters, at first you may not even be full-time, but a hiring hall body -- ie you are not an employee but you wait in the hall until you have seniority to take an opening, meanwhile doing part time, or filling in for people who are sick.