Rising

April 22, 2021
Getting into, and staying in, the plumbing/pipe fitting business today is a real exercise in patience, fortitude and perseverance.

The basic premise of this column is the condition of the trade in 2021, and moving forward. Getting into, and staying in, the plumbing/pipe fitting business today is a real exercise in patience, fortitude and perseverance. Still, the spirit of optimism, rising to the occasion and success are powerful draws. Notwithstanding these questions: Do you know the trade well enough to make a living at it? How are you going to find and retain qualified help? Can you find, and hire, qualified journeymen if you do well and want to expand? To answer some of those questions, it is necessary to realistically look at the climate in which you intend to make a living.

What with every pundit (knowledgeable or not) and commentator expressing the view that the trade, as we have known it, is either dying or already dead, it is good to note that as of now that simply is not the case. In my last column, I mentioned a comment by an “expert” saying that a fully trained and experienced journeyman will be the exception rather than the rule in the coming years. While there are a lot of people who sagely nod their heads and agree with such pronouncements, many of us who have been in the trades for a lot of years don’t agree with that assessment.

I know, the current mind set and work ethic of the available labor pool from which we draw our new apprentices is not ideal... or anywhere near ideal. Trying to find people who not only want to learn a trade, and who will actually show up for work for more than a couple of weeks is an exercise in futility (most of the time). Having said that, the mechanical trades at large are now gaining momentum toward vocational education programs that are enticing young people away from useless college degrees into the construction industries. It almost seems possible that the trade some are declaring on life support may actually rise, Phoenix-like, from its own ashes.

As pressure rises for construction workers across the nation, the critical need for skilled, well- and fully-trained professionals is becoming more apparent. Trade education and apprenticeship programs at the local, state and national levels are being revived and reinvigorated. Private companies are opening up for profit trade schools and they are not having a lot of trouble filling their programs. This could be the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel for our trade... or it could be a freight train. It’s too soon to tell. The thing is, it has been a long time coming, and one wonders if it is too little too late, or if the new efforts will bear fruit in time to revive the trades.

In any case, the idea that the day of the small one -or two-man plumbing shop are over is premature, in my opinion. There is always going to be that guy (or “person” to be more politically correct) who just knows in his bones that he can make it on his own and become his own boss. Whether by design or circumstance the person who puts themselves out there to do business will succeed, or not, on their own. The drive and industriousness that made this nation what it is today is still alive in the trades. It is just looking for ways to express itself. Even with the mortality rate of new business startups at 90 percent, there are those who still think the risk is worth the reward.

The dawning of the digital age and it’s offspring, AI, has had a profound effect on how the trades are practiced and business conducted. What it has not done, to any appreciable degree, is to change the work itself. Sure, there is more prefabbing going on and more compartmentalization of jobs, new methods of planning and production (BMI), but the work itself has not changed much. New materials and installation methods have been brought into the field, but the knowledge and skills needed to properly install the systems remains. Every task, no matter the material, has a beginning, a middle, and an end. Just like always.

Think about it. The pundits have declared that fully trained journeymen and masters will soon fade away, so who or what will take their place? For every journeyman who can do the job from start to finish, the nabobs are suggesting using, what? Four, five, six or more workers who can only do parts of it? Who gets to finish the project and make sure it all goes together the way it is supposed to, adjusting and adapting as needed to fit specific job conditions? What happens when a part, or parts, break down or don’t work? Their answer is simple: hire more people and just train them to do one or two things.

It seems, to me at least, that one well-trained journeyman can take the place of any number of “techs” who know just enough and no more. If you balance the scales with a whole trade trained journeyman on one side and a small army of partially trained “techs” on the other that the journeyman would be worth more, and cost less.

The problem, as I see it, is that there are too few skilled journeymen available right now. The use of partially trained people to perform work that fully trained tradesmen normally perform is one industry answer to this shortage. If the push for vocational education gathers momentum, it will not be very long before that shortage goes away and trade craft, once more, becomes something to be proud of and admired.

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-born author is a retired third generation master plumber. He founded Sunflower Plumbing & Heating in Shirley, N.Y., in 1975 and A Professional Commercial Plumbing Inc. in Phoenix in 1980. He holds residential, commercial, industrial and solar plumbing licenses and is certified in welding, clean rooms, polypropylene gas fusion and medical gas piping. He can be reached at allen@proquilldriver.com.

About the Author

Al Schwartz | Founder

The Brooklyn, N.Y.-born author is a retired third generation master plumber. He founded Sunflower Plumbing & Heating in Shirley, N.Y., in 1975 and A Professional Commercial Plumbing Inc. in Phoenix in 1980. He holds residential, commercial, industrial and solar plumbing licenses and is certified in welding, clean rooms, polypropylene gas fusion and medical gas piping.

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