The Law of Unintended Consequences

Novelist Peter David hit the nail on the head in his book Knight Life wherein the magician and mystic, Merlin, says any question can be answered by one of three statements: "Everybody has to be somewhere," "God told me to do it," and "It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Political opinions are ubiquitous. Everybody has them, and trying to argue who is right and who is wrong, especially about policy issues, is a fool’s errand. If you want an example, just look at Congress. All it does is make for hard feelings and harder positions. In fact, in the current political climate, I can honestly say that I have never seen a person change their opinion after engaging in a political debate. They only harden their resolve. So if this column instigates political dissent or agreement, that is not it’s intent.

All things being equal, this magazine is trade specific and politics, at least national politics, have no place between the covers except as they relate to the interests of our readers. My references to current governmental edicts and policies are intended to support the title of this column and not to argue on the efficacy of that policy or edict.

As you are all aware—and as this magazine and this author have been saying for over a decade—we in the trades are facing our most serious problem ever. I am of course alluding to the manpower problems we are dealing with. Fifty years ago, no one would have thought, much less believed, that there would come a time in America when a trade career would be something young people would shun or that finding, let alone hiring, apprentices would become an exercise in futility. Taking it a step further, no one back then would have dreamed that many of the younger generation from which “new blood” comes into the trades would actually find the idea of working to make a living to be ludicrous!

Yet, in the first quarter of the 21^st century we are dealing with those issues, and not doing very well solving the problem. Yes, today there is a renewed effort to make trade education attractive again, but it is anemic to say the least. There are passionate and capable people, like Douglas Greene of “New Collar Jobs” and Humberto Martinez of “Construction Career Days,” who have put their heart and soul into creating programs that showcase the appeal and opportunities a trade career offers but, until recently, they have been like prophets crying in the wilderness.

The renewed efforts to bring more people into the trades has resulted in little concrete forward movement because the “education” establishment is not on board with it, or at least not totally. When you think about it, why would they be? The cost of post high school education has risen dramatically over the past several decades, outstripping inflation, cost of living and reason, if truth be known. Why would the university monolith want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by supporting trade education? The short answer is they wouldn’t, and don’t.

Now there is a new issue that threatens to impact our industry on every front and, like the lack of support from the education “industry,” it’s agenda might be the final nail in the coffin of traditional construction trades. I am speaking of the vaccine mandate promulgated by the Biden administration.

Leaving aside governmental overreach, the eventual legal and constitutional issues of decreeing that people inject a vaccine into their bodies and all that it entails, the real issue that we as an industry must deal with is the mandate’s effect on manpower in our industry.

Mandating that your workforce be vaccine compliant or they cannot work on your project is, for lack of a better word, insane! While the motives and motivations of politicians may or may not be benign, the real impact of these edicts are staggering to contemplate.

Having just enumerated the problems we are having, and have had, finding, training and retaining qualified help, does anyone not see the resultant train wreck we are heading for in the trades? Is it just me?

What is going to happen to our existing workforce when some (many? few?) refuse the vaccine, for whatever reason? Let’s take a small example; you are contracted to remodel several rural post offices. These are Federal properties and, as such, must be compliant with the vaccine mandate. You are a small shop with four or five plumbers/apprentices. Three of your plumbers refuse to have the vaccine. You now have only three choices. 1) Try to complete the contract with your people who have been, 2) Walk away from the contract, or 3) Try to find three new plumbers who will be willing to accept the vaccine. Think about #3! I’ll wait!

The preceding scenario is now playing itself out across the nation in large scale. The big guys in our industry are trying to figure out what to do, but as of this writing, they have not found a solution. Political pressure will certainly come to bear, hopefully sooner rather than later, because common sense simply has to prevail!

An industry like ours, which relies entirely on the physical presence of workers and which cannot now fill the ranks to properly man projects, simply cannot tolerate any situation which further restricts the ability to man projects either upcoming or ongoing because we cannot find people to replace people who won’t be vaccinated. What do you do when highly trained professionals, whose replacements are nonexistent, refuse to work under government mandated vaccinations? Ask the airline industry!

Now, the unintended consequence of the existing policy is crippling our industry and will create an economic tsunami if it is not addressed... and soon. “It seemed like a good idea at the time,” is not something we want to look back on with a wry fondness.

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 [email protected].