My dad did these jobs his whole life. He's in still in better shape than I've ever been and has a union pension better than anything any company has ever offered me.
That's the point. You couldn't get the same deal as he got, because the industry has changed to be more worker-hostile since your father started.
No company in your industry has ever offered you anything like his union pension, because no companies in any industry (excepting maybe railroads?) offer anything like his union pension. They all stopped doing it some time between him and you.
The young people of today can't go back in time to when your dad was the same age. They have to take the jobs that are offered now. And the companies of now have worked very hard to bust the union influence of the past, so that they can offer crap pay and crap benefits, and shovel most of the risks of working the job onto the worker.
Young people are taking one look at that, and deciding to not even take one step down that career path. All this tells me is that young people are not as stupid as companies assumed them to be. The companies offering jobs that don't balance remuneration with worker risk then have to rely on workers with lower expectations, which is to say immigrants from countries with lower quality-of-life norms. They don't look at the work by judging the job in relation to other jobs in the US, but by comparing it to a similar job in their country of origin, and finding that it is X% better. Then the political scene changes, those workers start to dry up, and the companies are screwed--or, more accurately, hoist on their own petards.
So, try to start out as a new person in that area of construction unless it's highly specialized (line work, specialized welding, specialized fabrication, large machine operation with specialized licensure or training...)
Generally speaking, the old pension plans are only for those grandfathered in, new pay scales are lower, and hours to get better service time and benefits are higher.
Also, watch what companies do in terms of carving off subsidiaries with more of their retirees for intentional bankruptcy (see Patriot Coal). Those benefits will be cut in chapter 11 and then offloaded to the PBGC to be paid by the public.
Yep. My Father-in-law worked logging, fishing boats, and construction all his life and is now mid-70's, strong as an ox, very fit, very capable and knows how to do just about anything. Still working construction. Lighter jobs, but still.
He's lost his hearing, but that's genetic; nothing to do with his labor.
No company in your industry has ever offered you anything like his union pension, because no companies in any industry (excepting maybe railroads?) offer anything like his union pension. They all stopped doing it some time between him and you.
The young people of today can't go back in time to when your dad was the same age. They have to take the jobs that are offered now. And the companies of now have worked very hard to bust the union influence of the past, so that they can offer crap pay and crap benefits, and shovel most of the risks of working the job onto the worker.
Young people are taking one look at that, and deciding to not even take one step down that career path. All this tells me is that young people are not as stupid as companies assumed them to be. The companies offering jobs that don't balance remuneration with worker risk then have to rely on workers with lower expectations, which is to say immigrants from countries with lower quality-of-life norms. They don't look at the work by judging the job in relation to other jobs in the US, but by comparing it to a similar job in their country of origin, and finding that it is X% better. Then the political scene changes, those workers start to dry up, and the companies are screwed--or, more accurately, hoist on their own petards.