How to Pick the Right Union Trade

Brothers who picked welding at 18 and never looked back will tell you the same thing: pick the trade you can stand doing for forty years, not the one with the highest hourly rate this quarter. Money follows skill. Skill follows reps. Reps follow whether you can stomach the work.

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF

Do you want to be inside or outside? Do you want to travel or stay local? Do you want to work with your hands on detailed work or operate heavy equipment? Are you comfortable at heights? In tight spaces? In extreme heat or cold?

QUESTIONS TO ASK THE LOCAL

How long is the apprenticeship? What's the scale and benefits? How busy is the local — what's the average wait on the out-of-work list? What's the travel expectation? How healthy is the pension fund?

THE HONEST ANSWER

There is no "best" union. There is the union that matches the work you want to do, in the region where you want to live, with a pension fund you can count on. The brothers who built long careers picked one craft early and got very good at it. That is the play. — UnionBoomer.com