The Electrical Apprentice Story

1960

A True Story

Written 2/13/2016* 913 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

It was in 1960, and I was in my second year at New Haven State Teachers College.

That’s when I decided that teaching might not be for me.

The college Guidance Counselor suggested that I take some time off to decide what I really wanted to do with my life.

As it happens, I was very fortunate, because my father was a Journeyman electrician in New Haven Connecticut and he taught electrical classes in Local 90 Electricians Union, everyone knew him.

Naturally, my father was very disappointed when I told him what I was going to do, he didn’t want me to quit

College. But, against his better judgement, he agreed to get me into the Electricians Union as an apprentice.

I had told him it was just a temporary thing, just until I really decided what I was going to do.

Back then, just getting into any trade Union was nearly impossible, it was strictly a father-to-son proposition.

However, once I was in the Electricians Union, a large electrical contracting company immediately hired me, thinking my father had probably taught me everything he knew, but they were surely wrong about that.

As luck would have it, the very first job they sent me on was hanging fluorescent fixtures in the new addition to New Haven State Teachers College, the very College I had just quit.

So here I was, up on scaffolding, hanging fixtures as all my former classmates were yelling and waving to me as they changed classes.

It was a little embarrassing to have to explain to all of them what I was doing.

Fortunately, I was soon told to report on a new project that was being built in downtown New Haven.

It was a sixteen-floor apartment building, called University Towers.

In the construction industry as each floor goes up, each new floor is called a slab.

Before concrete is poured onto the slab, Iron workers, plumbers, and electricians are all needed to prepare everything. The Iron Workers put down re-bar, and then the plumbers and steamfitters put down all the water and sewer pipes that will eventually carry water and waste throughout the building.

At the same time, all this is going on, the electricians must lay down and connect miles of conduit and junction boxes that will carry all the electricity throughout the building.

All this work must be done on each slab prior to the concrete being poured.

As a building goes up, it becomes increasingly difficult for the electricians, because tons of metal conduit need to be lifted by a crane to each new floor, and then it all needs to be connected according to the building’s electrical blueprints.

To make this job easier for the electricians, a small shed is set up at the building’s ground level.

At the shed, usually two electrician apprentices like me, pre-bend all the metal conduit pipe, before it is lifted by crane up to the new slab.

Each bundle of pre-bent metal conduct can weigh up to hundreds of lbs.

So, my first job at University Towers was to pre-bend the bundles of metal conduit being lifted onto the slab.

This work was all done by hand using a manual pipe bender.

For doing this backbreaking work in 1960, I was paid the lofty sum of $1.37 per hour.

I realized that it was no wonder my father wanted me to stay in college.

After working on the University Towers project for eight months, I spotted the electrical company’s business agent walking around the construction site.

I got his attention, and he came over to talk to me at the conduit bending shed.

I asked him what the chances were of my getting a raise.

He said that he knew very well who I was, he said my father was a friend of his as they had worked together.

He said, “I have been watching you for months, and you are doing one hell of a good job, and without you guys, bending all the conduit, this project would be at a standstill”.

I felt it was a good positive meeting, and I was glad that I had said something to him.

The next Friday afternoon when the pay envelopes were being handed out, I was holding my breath, I couldn’t wait to open my pay envelope.

When I looked at it, I was in disbelief as my hourly pay had been increased to $1.37.5 per hour.

They had given me a ½ cent per hour pay raise.

If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I would never have believed it.

That business agent didn’t know it, but he had just helped me make a very big decision.

The following week I applied to New Haven College, which is now called The University of New Haven, and I

was accepted.

Possibly if I stayed with the electric Company I could be earning as much as $1.38 per hour by now.