Just yesterday a work mate was telling me his friend earns $350,000 a year as an electrician at the Wheatstone project, 2 weeks on,2 weeks off. Fucking crazy $.
Yeah it's the same here in Australia with the MUA(Maritime Union of Australia) it was very hard for me to get into not having family members involved already, the wharfie's and seafarers jobs here pretty much only go to the sons of blokes already in the industry...partly because they don't want to weaken their union with softcocks or those they don't consider to be staunch. But holy shit the industry is under severe attack from the liberal govt trying to bring in foreign labour and break the unions.A lot of the kids I went to high school with were in families that worked at the docks at the Port of Los Angeles. It's stupid hard to get into the Longshoremen union. There's a five year waiting list just to be a casual. But once you're in, you're in. You can tie a rope from the boat to the dock and get paid $36/hr. Work only a few hours a day? Get paid for a full eight hours. One of my buddy's dad is a shift leader; he went to nights because it paid $50K more. Crane drivers get paid a minimum of $200k, but it takes at least fifteen years of experience to become one. As a result of all of this, most of the kids I went to high school with were absolute shitheads. They didn't care about anything because they knew once they graduated there was a sweet job waiting for them.
Of course, there is always the possibility of a container being dropped on you. It happens.
Of course now I kinda miss it.
I'm done with working in an office. I'd rather do that shit now..
Always a job though, just means you got to move to the South and always be an operator and no longer a machinist hah