Trade secrets

At the Plumbers and Gasfitters Union Local 5's training facility, in Lanham, Maryland, young men and women go through a five-year apprenticeship learning the trade, before they can call themselves licensed plumbers.

"I was one of those kids that knew I wasn't going to college," said Julius Wright, a master plumber, and an instructor. "It's crazy, because there's a five-year apprenticeship, and college is four years!"

"Sunday Morning" senior contributor Ted Koppel said, "I mean, it's not easy, but you're getting paid."

"Here, you don't have student loans that you have to pay back. You're getting paid to learn a trade."

Learning here and assisting a licensed plumber on the job, an apprentice can make up to $77,000 a year. Even so, says Brandon Magrowsky, the work carries a certain stigma: "Growing up, my parents would say something like that and say, 'Oh, go to school, so you don't end up like them.'  I get great pay, great benefits. I'm not doing bad. But normal people still look down on us."

"Why do you say 'normal people'?" asked Koppel.

"The regular everyday people. The people that work 9-5 in an office. We get dirty. We get smelly.  We get covered in all sorts of muck. It's just what we do."

Matthew Crawford, who repairs motorcycles, said, "The division is partly a function of people thinking that because the work is dirty, it must be stupid. If people never attempted skilled manual work, they may not understand just how intellectually rich and engaging it can be, and demanding."

To describe Crawford as a mechanic with a Ph.D. in philosophy is a little glib. It's also true. "I was the director of a think tank, and I quit that job to open a motorcycle repair shop," he said.

Because?  "Well, the think tank work, essentially we started with a set of conclusions, the ones that our donors wanted, and then work backward to a set of premises that could get us to the conclusions," Crawford said. "Whereas if you're trying to figure out why a bike doesn't start and run right, you can't weasel your way out of it not starting and running right."

And, Crawford reminds us, there are 43 million Americans carrying a student loan debt averaging somewhere north of $37,000. The trades, meanwhile, provide more than just a good living; they also deliver, Crawford insists, intellectual fulfillment: "What distinguishes the skilled trades, I think, is that you're always using your own judgment. The physical circumstances in which a plumber does work, or an electrician, you're never simply following a set of instructions. You always have to get a handle on some novel situation and diagnose it."

According to Local 5 apprentice Jake Thiess, "We do work with our hands a lot, but a lot of it's up here," indicating his brain. "People don't really appreciate that. People think it's simple to fix a toilet. And they think it's simple to weld a pipe. A guy I work with said it's art without an audience."

Koppel asked, Terriea "T" Smalls, business manager of Local 5, "What do you think is causing the divisions in this country today?"

"Ignorance," he replied. "That stigma, that myth that people that are in trades did trades because they couldn't do anything else. Not understanding that the guy that engineered the highways is a trade guy. The guy that engineered the IT services that get you your internet is a trade-based guy."

"In the old days, a union man was a Democrat, always," said Koppel.

"Yeah," Smalls laughed.

"Not anymore?

"Nope. Not anymore. You put trust in politicians, they'll break your heart, you know?"

One man working a sand pit told Koppel, "At the union level, I think they always say to vote Democrat. But if you talk to people out in the field, most of them are very conservative in their values."

Another man said, "When you come to work, as long as we're getting work done, you can believe in whatever you want."

A lot of the divisions in America today seem rooted in the perception that some white-collar workers and many college graduates have about themselves relative to the tradespeople who keep their homes, and their cars, and their utilities functioning.

Crawford said, "That illusion contributes to the contempt that many people feel for the working class. So, to my mind, a lot of that division in the country is facilitated by a lack of acquaintance with the kind of work that others are doing for those of us who are free of it ourselves."

Julius Wright says he make more than $100,000. It's a modest answer. ""I have two houses," he laughed.

Koppel asked, "Why do you think people still have such a strange outlook toward the working man and woman?"

"My opinion is, people need to have a certain status or feel they're in a certain class group over someone else," he replied.

"And you think going to college gives people that sense of 'I'm a little better than you are'?"

"Yes. 'Because I'm educated.' They don't think we're educated," Wright said. "What the pandemic taught us was that we're essential. When they were locked in their house, and [the toilet] doesn't work, who do you call? The uneducated plumber, right? So, now who's winning? The college, or the trade?"

     
For more info:

• Plumbers & Gasfitters of Local 5 Training Facility, Lanham, Md.

     
Story produced by Dustin Stephens. Editor: Ed Givnish.