Union Value

Insist on Professional Union Plumbing, Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) and Pipe Contractors. Our journeymen and technicians have completed a rigorous five-year training program. This is one more than Illinois Law requires for licensed plumbers.

United Association
The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry of the United States and Canada or “UA” as it is commonly known is a multi-craft union whose members are engaged in the fabrication, installation and servicing of piping systems. There are approximately 291,000 highly-skilled United Association members who belong to 418 individual local unions across North America. A great deal of training is required during apprenticeship before becoming a licensed Journeyman.

Apprentices
Before applying for apprenticeship in a local union, applicants are required to be at least 18 years of age and have received a high school diploma or a G.E.D. All apprentices complete five years of hands-on and classroom training before taking the licensing exam. With hands-on and classroom training, all apprentices are fully knowledgeable in their trade before becoming licensed journeymen.

Journeymen
The local unions offer classes for journeymen on a regular basis to upgrade their training.

What UA Members Do
UA members (plumbers, pipefitters, sprinklerfitters, refrigeration fitters, and service technicians) are involved in just about every aspect of construction involving piping from the space program to nuclear power houses to refineries to shipbuilding. UA craftsmen apply their skills in commercial, industrial and residential arenas. They may be found on jobsites involving single-family homes, garden and high-rise apartment buildings, large and small office buildings, power plants, chemical installations and factories.

At this very moment, there may also be UA members at work installing complicated medical gas piping in your local hospital or putting sprinkler systems in the hotel where you will take your family on vacation.

Other UA members are laying pipelines that stretch across the landscape to serve your community’s energy needs. Still others are servicing plumbing, heating and cooling equipment in your home or workplace.

And from a big industrial project to a routine service call, UA members bring precision and craftsmanship to every job they take on.