i think i told u about my nephew who won the state welding championship in highschool then went to kansas city to represent bama, and there he had to weld also against college students, and came in 9th in the nation. he joined not the teamsters welder local but the pipefitters local ,, so he welds some but also pipe fits... he wanted on the travel team, they call them the travelers, so he has mainly been working in different power steam plants as they always need upgrading, the teamsters furnish his benefits by putting money for each hour he works in a fund to pay for his benefits,retirement , healthcare etc. this is extra and not out of his pay, well he always wanted to weld on the canadian pipe line the new one there is one coming all the way down to the gulf, i talked to him today,, well anyway, he got sent to chicago to weld on a refinery, he said they are building a new one, it will be the 7th largest refinery and will be built inside the 5th largest refinery, he had to pass a pipe welding test up there, one was stick welding on a pipe and one was tig on another, if he failed he came home, he took his 5th wheel camper which is new and nice,, anyway, 30 ppl from here went and 6 out of 30 passed the test, and he was one of the 6,, but he also must on the job, pass the xray test on his first 2 weld jobs, the pipe will be like 2 inches inside diameter to about 20 inches,, he is only 22 and is making 45 bucks an hour, and after the holiday. they will start working 12 hours a day 7 days a week which he likes, the jobs usually last just a few months, then he is layed off for a couple 3 weeks, he draws his sui he has always been in the alabama, he is in a nice campground out in the country a bit. anyway on sundays he will get double time and make 90 bucks an hour, he will make 5,040 .00 bucks a week the job will probably run till November, he said the teamsters local up there has 7,000 welders, but needed more so they called in the travelers, he has learned to work hard and long hours in his dads construction company, he said what they are building is to refine the oil out of the sand oil in canada, the oil in the sand they have up there. anyway it would not be for me but he likes it. he will come home holidays, and him and his brother are great kids. his brother is like 10 years older, well i know this was kinda long, just proud of him, take care

That is great Congrats proud Uncle. ,Jer is in the pipefitters union,of course he is semi retired now~ at seventy he said he doesn't know if he will completely stop working,or not LOL

That's great rosco I'm happy for him. That's a lot of money hes making.