Being an electrician is one of the most fulfilling trade out there. With an annual income that bested most jobs in the construction business and a solid, diverging career path to choose from, to become a certified electrician and under employment is to secure a stable livelihood with a lot of room for growth.
But like all individuals in the trade who underwent and overcame its many challenges, to become an electrician is not a simple walk in the park. Not only does the process of becoming one requires a lot of learning, it also takes a solid working experience as well. Typically, these two critical elements would come from apprenticeship programs which is essential in becoming an electrician.
See Also: Electrician Levels / Ranks
Why Opt for an Electrician Apprenticeship Program?
Basically, the counterpart of college or university schooling in other professions, an apprenticeship program is an important requirement to becoming a journeyman electrician. Normally, an average apprenticeship program lasts for about 4 to 5 years.
However, unlike getting enrolled in a college or university, to be an apprentice electrician is to learn mostly from actual working experience based on the learning from class. One major perk of being an apprentice is that you get to expose to a “job-like” environment as early as your first year in the program.
According to ZipRecruiter, an apprentice electrician’s salary per annum is set at $35,578 or $2965 per month in the United States alone. But it can also be as high as $48,000. Regardless, that is more than what an average worker in the same country earns.
When most students who are going through college or university are either always broke or struggling or are dependent on someone else to finish their studies, to be a paid and learning apprentice is undoubtedly a privilege.
If you are aspiring to become an electrician in the future, ask yourself this—” Why should you not be in an apprenticeship program?”
See Also: Electrician Types
Union Apprenticeship or Open Shop Apprenticeship?
There is a myriad of associations across the United States whose aim is to offer apprenticeship programs for those who are dreaming to tread the path of an electrician. To be in an apprenticeship program is to go through one of two routes—be an apprentice by a union group or go apprenticeship on open shops.
No sane person will pass up the chance to get an apprenticeship with a union association. Not only does the education to be given to you is free, you also get to earn in the process as you apply your learnings at work. That is basically a “double gain” when you think about it, as a trade-off for your time and active effort in learning.
However, rooted from the same idea, getting into a union apprenticeship is not easy. For something so perky, to be accepted in a union apprenticeship is difficult nowadays. This is possibly aggravated by the fact that applicants who are weak in certain aspects of the trade are worse off than the average applicant.
Yet, when one door closes to you, another opens. In this case, you still have an alternative which is a potential apprenticeship in an open shop. Some refer to this route as something akin to traditional schooling which also lasts as long as the union apprenticeship.
See Also: Electrician Tools
Employment After Training
Finishing on a 4- or 5-year course as an apprentice, your next logical step is to officially join the workforce with the label journeyman electrician attributed to your name.
But while there’s a cornucopia of selections, these choices would typically boil down to just two categories— union contractors (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers [IBEW]) or non-union shops (Associated Builders and Contractors, Inc. [ABC] or Independent Electrical Contractors [IEC]).
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Union Contractors
In the United States, there is only a single body that governs every local electrical unions and that is the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers [IBEW] which, in turn, is a member of the AFL-CIO [American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations].
Being a member of the union has its perks:
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Education is free
When many college or university students are burying themselves in debt by just wanting to get an education, choosing a union-based apprenticeship program is literally free. To the complete opposite, it pays you.
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Good-paying salary
Union members are paid better than their non-union counterpart, thanks to the collective bargaining power of the group. One major explanation to this is that there is power in numbers.
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More work benefits
A lumpsum of money as salary is not the only benefit of working as an electrician and a member of the union of the same time. There is also a slew of other compensations a union member is entitled to, including insurances, etc.
See Also: Electrician Safety Clothing
Non-union Shops
Despite all the benefits of being a member, some still opt for another route which is getting it through non-union shops. Some people who do choose to work in a non-union shop does so primarily out of the distaste of the politics that is rife in any union group.
By going through this path, you are basically walking the walk of a conventional worker with your own bargaining chip under the belt.
Perks of being an apprentice at a non-union shop:
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Personal autonomy
If you love the idea of being able to decide for yourself of which company to work for and how much you would like to be compensated for work, one of the major perks of going for a non-union route is to have just that. By choosing to gain meaningful employment in a non-union shop is essentially to become its employee.
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You could work lesser hours
It is hard to hold a part-time job as an electrician if you are a member of the union. But if you are going solo, this is easily something you could bargain for yourself. However, at fewer work hours, this also imply lesser pay and limited work benefits.