I am pro-union, just wanted to say that up front, but The experience I’ve had with the first ironworkers union I’ve worked out of has me very confused.

So while I was in trade school through a local community college my instructor asked me if I wanted to go to work, I said yes, asked where and how long the job is and he and the union rep said I’d be sworn in before my first job was done, got on site as a spotter but quickly got my welding certs and started welding and then learned enough about rigging to help the rigging guys when there wasn’t much to weld, fast forward of bouncing between welding and rigging and the building topped out and lay offs went around and I took mine and while laid off I was at the apprentice center almost every day getting additional weld certs, learning as much as I could about rebar, rigging, connecting, to the point I could keep up with several of the 2 or 3 year apprentices I had befriended. Well 6 months goes by and I hadn’t gotten offered to go to any jobs and my unemployment had stopped. So I started fixing trailers out of my garage with the tools I had bought for ironworking and the generator welder I’ve had since before I started trade school (granddads hand-me-down machine) and since I told the apprentice coordinator and union rep that I was doing that they have essentially ghosted me, and keep giving me what seems like run around answers when I ran up to the apprentice classroom building.

So the question I have is what do I do from here? It seems as though even tho I’ve gone above and beyond what I’ve been asked to do they won’t send me out to work and I’m being forced to find a job outside of ironworking even tho the local I’m talking about is running ads saying they need people and I’ve already got my cert cards and osha 10 and have the tools to work