Employers Need Wind Power Technicians

Hugh Pickens writes "NPR reports that Oklahoma is one state benefitting from the energy boom. With a wind power rush underway, companies are competing to secure the windiest spots, while breathing life into small towns. The problem is, each turbine requires regular maintenance during its 20-year lifespan, with a requirement of one turbine technician for every 10 turbines on the ground. So even with a job that can pay a good starting salary (for technicians with a GED or high school diploma who complete a four-week turbine maintenance training program), there aren't enough qualified technicians to do the work. 'It seems odd, with America's unemployment problem, to have a shortage of workers for a job that can pay in excess of $20 per hour. But being a turbine technician isn't easy,' says Logan Layden, adding that technicians typically have to climb 300 foot high towers to service the turbines. Oscar Briones is one of about a dozen students who recently finished a maintenance training program after leaving his job as a motorcycle mechanic and now has his pick of employers. 'So I was in the market to find something else to do, and this seemed pretty exciting. Being 300 feet in the air, that's pretty exciting in its self. So yeah, I'm a thrill seeker.'"

Comments

Oh please

[sunking2]

If heights is the reason for the lack of people then we have really lost our way. Reference the pictures of the guys building the Empire State Building, are they saying we couldn't get people to do that now? The reality here is either you have an industry that is too new and unorganized, a union that is putting a choke holds on the labor pool, or some other dumb ass bureaucratic reason that is making the country noncompetitive.

Re:Oh please

[cptdondo]

Ever done manual labor?

Climb up a 300' tower with tools?

I work in a manual labor industry. It's no joke. These guys and gals work hard, and it's not an easy job. The only time you see them is when it's sunny and nice, because that's when you're out walking your dog. How about when it's 31 degrees, freezing rain, and you're knee deep in freezing water? For an 8 hour shift? You're not out there because it's too miserable; you're at home under the blanket watching TV. They're out there working.

Try getting out there, and working at the top of even a 60' bucket truck, in high wind. Now try it at the top of a 300' tower, in freezing cold wind.

If these were union jobs, they'd be going for $40+. The $20/hour thing tells me they're not union.

Re:Oh please

[Pinky's Brain]

You need to turn your bullshit filter on ... what they say there is a lack of workers, what they mean is they don't really want to pay 20$ an hour.

Re:Oh please

[data2]

It's a question of the size of turbine. The bigger ones have work benches and everything in the _rooms_ at the top of the towers.

Re:Oh please

[magarity]

If heights is the reason for the lack of people then we have really lost our way. Reference the pictures of the guys building the Empire State Building, are they saying we couldn't get people to do that now?

The Empire State workers didn't go through modern public school's 12 years of "Rah rah rah! I'm great for no particular reason!"

Re:Oh please

[Anonymous Coward]

Why would anyone working at a university want to downgrade to a $20/hour job? By capitalistic standards, they ARE "too good for it".

It's patently obvious they're superior to you. You're a blooming idiot.

Sounds Good.

[smpoole7]

I don't climb the towers for our radio stations. I know a few maintenance engineers who do, but they're rare. Tower crews get thousands of dollars per day to do the climbing. Just to relamp our 350' towers at one of our stations costs about $750 per (and we have 5 of them).

So yeah, I can imagine that they're looking for people who will climb 300' towers for $20 an hour. Good luck with that. :)

The law of unintended consequences has a corollary: unintended *costs.*

Re:Sounds Good.

[smpoole7]

And here's the thing ... Jim, the guy who runs the tower company that we use, is always looking for experienced climbers. So, how long will it be before tower companies start raiding these $20 an hour guys, promising more money and better benefits? :)

These wind turbine people didn't think their fiendishly-clever plan all the way through. You ALWAYS factor the cost of maintenance into a business plan. ALWAYS.

It might actually have been cheaper to build the turbines so that the assembly could be raised and lowered for service. Would have cost more up front, but would have saved in the long run. Heck, ham operators have been doing that with their antennas for decades. :)

hmm

[chickenrob]

There are over 1000 electricians out of work in my local electrical union. Any of us would be glad to do that work, but they are not willing to pay qualified electricians to do the work.

Re:hmm

[Kangburra]

Isn't $20 an hour better than no job at all? Or is there some reason the electricians can't work for that amount?

Re:hmm

[johnnyb]

Yes, this usually happens when the employees have been milking the companies. That's actually what is happening now. This is why people are willing to go to cheap labor. If your current work crew isn't performing well, you might as well hire out for cheaper. If your workers are good at what they do and work hard, then the employer won't hire to the cheap pool, because the cheap pool isn't equivalent.

Where I work, we sometimes bid a job for 4x what other firms bid it out for. But many companies still hire us. Why? Because they know that it will cost more in the long run if they go with people who aren't as competent to do the work.

Middle class wages are stagnant because (a) middle class workers are slacking, and (b) the government is eating up any possible extra money, and (c) inflating the currency enough to make savings worthless.

If the well-paid workers aren't any better than the cheaper pool, why *should* they be earning more money? Also remember that the split between a "worker" and an "owner" is purely voluntary - any of those workers could themselves be owners, but have chosen not to be. Money is not a right. You must work to earn your keep.

Re:hmm

[chill]

Middle class wages are stagnant because (a) middle class workers are slacking, and (b) the government is eating up any possible extra money, and (c) inflating the currency enough to make savings worthless.

A and B are factually incorrect. Productivity in the United States has been on a constant rise for the last 60 years. This would directly contradict A because it indicates more and more output is being produced by the workers.

The total tax rate on people is lower now than practically anytime in the last 50 years.

C is totally true, though. That an real inflation -- the cost of food, housing, energy, etc. -- has increased to keep pace with wage inflation. This makes it next to impossible to accept lower wages and actually keep your home/car. Unfortunately, with the housing market as is, moving isn't really much of an option. The housing crash has seriously curtailed the mobility of the workforce.

Re:hmm

[guanxi]

This is what caused the unions to form to begin with. Large, dangerous industry like mining and manufacturing, paid enough for people to survive but not enough for them to ever prosper. It was a form of "voluntary" indentured servitude.

If everyone got together and demanded better conditions or raises, they would get fired and replaced with the never-ending line of people desperate just to survive. Only by striking and creating a picket line to actually shut down business would any real change ever get made.

It was more than that. Employers politically dominated the towns. Oppose them and nobody would do business with you, your bank would call in your mortgage, and you might have trouble with the sheriff. Employers also would beat up and kill people who opposed them, often with the help of state law enforcement. Unions not only provided negotiating power, but political power: Politicians who need union votes aren't going to send in the state militia to assault strikers, and will pass laws that take into account more interests than just the industrialists, such as child labor, worker safety, and overtime laws.

Unions are political organizations. They can be used for good or for ill, like the political power of the US Chamber of Commerce, but at least the working class can protect their interests.

Re:hmm

[Billly Gates]

I disagree. Underemployment is better than no employment. It means some goods are produced and those that work under employed jobs are statistically more likely to get back to their skill level when the economy improves.

Is it is as good as not working what they once did? No, but it is better than nothing.

Every employer I met will not hire anyone out of work. You are unhirable and something must be wrong if you are out of work for more than a month. Recession? They do not care. They figured your skills are not fresh anymore anyway.

In my somewhat cynical oppinion

[Anonymous Coward]

All these "Industry X facing chronic shortage of qualified Y" stories can typically be translated to either:

"Profession Y is well paid, and we would like to drive down those wages by saturating the market with graduates"
"Profession Y is a niche / dying trade that we rely on, but running training schemes / apprenticeships hurts our quarterly returns"

In both cases Y tends to be industry specific engineers

Re:Oscar?

[jhoegl]

Here is my thought on that. He is getting into a very very very virgin market. Meaning there are things on Wind Turbines that, as a mechanic, you might come up with to make it safer, more efficient, or more robust. Allowing you to invent and patent possible revelation and thus living an American dream.
I kinda envy these new maintenance people.

Re:Oscar?

[Overzeetop]

Might as well buy a lottery ticket. Most of the really keen folks who would come up with the next new widget and make a million dollars are already making their mark in other fields. Somewhere they're a smart kid out of work that will take a chance on this job, and come up with something cool. He's one in a thousand. Actually there are a hundred of him out there, in fact. And one of those hundred will make it to the American Dream stage. The other ninety-nine thousand will trudge through with $40k a year until the find another job or retire.

Capitalism is depressing if you're not both innovative AND lucky. But it beats never having a chance at all.

4 week training?

[Drakin]

I'm thinking these folks are underpaid & under trained.

I got more training that that as a newly hired first year apprentice with my power company, on top of my apprenticeship board required education. And I still had to work under direct supervision until I got my journeyman ticket.

Unless there's a lot more to it, they're likely not qualified, and you'll see the electrical and mechanical trades start a fuss over it.

Re:4 week training?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm thinking these folks are underpaid & under trained.

Mod parent up, Insightful.

To climb a 300' tower and risk your life inside a small room with a spinning rotor holding more inertia than your entire body could handle, let alone a finger or hand (as is likely to get caught in it if anything does) is a massive amount of risk and work. $20/hour is disgusting for something that has no overhead aside from startup costs and maintenance - these guys are certainly underpaid, and the free market is a very simple thing when it comes to labor: if you can't attract the talent, increase the wages.

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