UA Journal Celebrating 10 Years of Veterans In Piping Welding Program PDF and the UA Website for VIP.

Being a member of the Plumbers and Pipefitters Union, I'm a huge supporter of this program. Any thing I can do to get the word out on it, I try to do. The PDF I linked to is our internal trade magazine that is a comprehensive review and explanation of the program, history of it, and profiles of various vets who have gone through the program.

It's a 12 (or 16 week) program that teaches you how to weld structurally (fillet welds, all positions, usually stick) and how to weld pipe (all positions, stick, TIG, MIG). Upon successful completion, they place you as a second year apprentice pretty much any where you want. I'm not sure how that part works. But I can say confidently if my business manager said "no we don't want a VIP graduate in our local" for whatever reason, we'd probably tar and feather him after the union meeting.

Second year apprentices in my local union make 50% (first 6 months) or 55% (second 6 months) of journeyman scale which is about $45 an hour, not including the fringe benefits of the pension and health insurance. I think total package is $64-65/hr. It just changed, and I haven't got the paperwork on the new changes yet. Probably went up 2 or 3%.

As I understand it, it is that it's available to any vet, any service member who is close to separation from any armed service. Active duty, vet, regular, reservists, guard, Coast Guard, etc. There's locations all over the US at various bases. I'm lead to believe they'll TDY you to a base if you get in. If you or anyone you know is looking at options post military service, and are interested in a skilled trade, check it out or spread the word on it.

If ya'll have any questions about the building trades, or unions, aside from what is on the website and in the PDF of the magazine, let me know. I will do my best to answer them, or find someone who can.

I've been in the trade for 15 years, I've been all over the USA working, and the scope of the work we're trained in is insanely large. At this point I own my business doing CAD/BIM doing the pre-construction planning and modeling of plumbing and mechanical systems, but have also been in the field pipefitting, doing heavy industrial rigging/signalling, working Chip plants like Intel's, refineries, LNG plants, power plants, automobile plants (Tesla's Gigafactory).

Cheers.