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PRE-APPRENTICE PROGRAM: 9 WEEKS
The Pre-apprenticeship program offers persons wishing to join the union with no experience the training necessary to work as a beginning carpenter.
The General Carpentry 9-continuous-week program combines class subjects (safety, math, print reading, carpentry topics) with shop projects (safety, layout). One-third of the Pre-apprentice (PA) day is spent in the class, two-thirds in the shop. PA class work includes regular homework assignments and ongoing quizzes and tests. Time is also devoted each day to physical training and material handling.
A $60.00 stipend is paid to the PA for weeks 4 thru 9. Upon successful completion of the program the new apprentice recieves $300.00 of hand tools, the initiation fees, and first quarter's Union Dues.
What is a Union Carpenter?
A Carpenter is the person who builds or remodels residential and commercial buildings, some very large, some not, which we all use to live, work, and play in. Carpenters are required on every type of building as we form the foundations and install inside trim including doors and hardware, which all buildings use. Many buildings, the one you live in perhaps, have been built completely by Carpenters, with other trades attending to the mechanical parts. From our years of training we constantly build with safety of construction, safety of the workers, and your safety and security in mind.
Carpenters build other projects besides wood or light-gauge steel buildings. Concrete road, bridge, airport, and water project construction is a large part of the Carpenter trade. Some of our work is underground (the Deep Tunnel), and 10- 20- 40- 60- to 100-stories high in the sky, as well as at ground level. Some Carpenters spend months or years working on one large building or a subdivision of houses. There are specialists and do one type of Carpenter job over and over, but since no job is ever the same, they do not get tired of the repetition. Carpentry work can be working entirely outside, entirely inside, or a combination of both throughout the year. From ancient times, when there were tools, there were Carpenters.
A Union Carpenter is someone who has decided to join the Union to receive a decent wage, extensive health benefits, and a long-lasting full pension for their hard work. There is strength in numbers, there always has been, the membership of the Union provides this strength. Strength for good contracts with our contractors, strength for good working rules on our jobsites.
Many of our brothers and sisters have at some time been non-union Carpenters, joining the Union and becoming active, participating members having lived the conditions of the non-union worker. Lack of fair wages, long working hours with no overtime pay, no benefits of any kind, no pension, even having to provide a vehicle and every tool for the Carpenter's trade is not uncommon on non-union jobs.
The Carpenter's Union in the Chicago area provides an extensive evening and weekend upgrade program exclusively for our Union members to keep their skills current as materials and technology changes construction. Keeping current will keep you advancing on the worksite from carpenter to crew leader to foreman to superintendent if you wish advancement. Perhaps setting the stage for your own Union contracting company some day.
Some of our members are only interested in working eight hours a day, spending the afternoons at or coaching softball or soccer with their family. While many office workers are still fighting traffic trying to get home for the softball or soccer results instead. In 1881 when the Chicago Carpenter's Union was formed the motto was eight hours for work, eight hours for play, and eight hours for sleep. Another slogan was eight hours work for eight hours pay. These are still good standards to live by in the 21st century.
Carpentry is hard work. Carpentry is also very interesting and fulfilling work. It is not unusual at all to have Carpenters tell you "I worked on that building" over and over and throughout the Chicago area. This is because of the pride of creating something with basically our bare hands, our sweat, our skill, and our special knowledge.
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