Well yeah you've practically done the same thing that's been done with software where juniors need education plus three years of experience for their first job so you have no juniors.
Now, there are certificates and other training that most places expect for blue collar workers starting as apprentices.
The days of walking off the street to get an apprenticeship in the trades is over. You'll get one after proving you're not on drugs, can show up, and are willing to do bullshit jobs for minimum wage for a three to five years beforehand.
It is really hard on bodies.
My first construction job ever was in the Caribbean. I got placed with a group of Haitians, and we were all laborers. We never had a tool in our hands. We simply carried materials, loaded things onto the roof, set up scaffolding, etc.
On my third day on the job, the leader of the Haitians became angry at me and kept telling me to slow down. I kept pushing and the lead carpenter on the job noticed. The next day, the general contractor (my boss) pulled me aside and said "when you come in on Monday, make sure you have a tool belt, a hammer, a pencil, a speed square, a tape measure, and a razor blade."
I showed up that Monday with all of the required tools and the GC let me work alongside the lead carpenter. At the end of that first week, the lead carpenter lent me a book that he used to learned carpentry while he was in a union in Wisconsin. I spent all weekend reading that book and I had tons of questions for him when I returned to work the next week.
I never looked back. I have since worked professionally in every single residential construction related trade. I am confident that I can perform each trade at a professional level with the exception of welding. I can weld. I welded everything on my Land Cruiser and I've welded scores of hip plates over the years. But I'm not confident enough to say that I could perform at the same level as a good professional welder.
But HVAC, electrical, plumbing, roofing, siding, millwork installation, finish carpentry, landscaping, and irrigation are all things that I can perform at a top level.
That lead carpenter ended up being my best friend I have ever had and he taught me about a lot more than carpentry.
Even for the explicit goal of getting juniors trained, the crew that does the better job is probably doing more training than the worse crew.
I put on a tool belt as a kid because I didn’t have the opportunity to go to school. It was either learn a trade or fail into the pit of despair that is the hospitality industry.
I’m in the south so we don’t have the benefits of union training.
A union carpenter with one year of on the job training will run circles around a veteran carpenter from the south with 15-20 years of experience who never had access to such training.
Can you elaborate on this point? What is it about the union that makes their on the job training so effective? Veteran carpenters with 15-20 yrs of exp have, in general, a very strong skill set -- what is the union doing that makes people catch up so fast? And if that's true, why do more people not defect from the union?