Welders’ Pay Won’t Increase

At Newport News Shipbuilding. In 1992, I took a job with the Newport News Shipyard as a welder for almost 16 dollars per hour. The pay rate has not changed at all in 15 years, even with inflation. But I’m certain that the hazards are still there.

This is what happens when a union runs your business. Your employees work for poor wages in perpetuity.

Now the City of Hampton wants to build a vocational school to teach his dropout high school kids how to weld so they can work a horrible job as a welder at the Shipyard. I guess teaching them to read and write was too tough, so maybe they will learn how to work in a dangerous workplace and hope not to catch fire.

From the Daily Press here:

The idea came to Hampton Mayor Ross A. Kearney II when he saw an ad from Northrop Grumman Newport News searching for 1,600 welders who could start working for $16 an hour.

Kearney, a government teacher at Phoebus High School, thought of the students he watched disappear before graduation during his four decades in Hampton schools.

“Why couldn’t I have taught them to be welders?” he thought.

Now Kearney is thinking about pushing for a work force development high school in Hampton that would teach students the skills to be welders, carpenters, electricians and plumbers, among other professions.

A Google search shows that most welders get paid at least twice that amount at comparable shipyards across the country.

You can read my horror stories about welders in the comments section of this post.