2nd year apprentice here. Going to my first block of trade school in a month and told my foreman I won't be coming back afterwards. I didn't expect him to care but later he tried to convince me otherwise.

I have multiple reasons for this but the one I gave him is that I think working for multiple companies over my apprenticeship would better prepare me to be a decent journeyman. That working for different companies would lead to being exposed to different kinds of work.

He said that the site we're on (high rise residential slab job where i sometimes work on slab, sometimes pull wire with a journeyman) has all types of work in it (fire alarm, distribution, high voltage are the three he mentioned) and that I'll be able to learn plenty with my current company (from what I can tell all they do is high rise residential).

My instinct tells me this isn't true, but perhaps I don't know enough to know any better. I still plan on leaving but wanted to get some advice here. The cynical part of me thinks he's asking me to stay because the company seems to be having a tough time finding decent workers.

I have other reasons for not wanting to stay. I don't want to be "reliant" or overly-ensconced in a single company, the hiring hall is a major reason i wanted to join the union. Its worth mentioning that 353 seems to have a strong transfer culture.

The current company is also a ratty, (wanting to pay 1.5x for overtime instead of the contractual 2x which I pushed back on and got my 2x, being stingy with supplying water, the foreman got pissy when i pointed out I didnt get my parking pay for one of my shifts, but i stood my ground on it and got it the next week) but I don't care to argue with him so I haven't brought this up.

But I digress, am I right in wanting to move around? Of course, there's a decent chance I'll end up at another high rise call since those seem to be predominant lately. But it won't be the end of the world if that happens. Any advice?