Home Our Apprenticeship Program

A career in the pipetrades is a prestigious, well-paying one, with possibilities for advancement and even ownership of your own firm. What's more, BAA contractors are equal opportunity employers, who offer careers regardless of sex, race, national origin, or religious faith.

If you have the right stuff, you could be eligible for the five-year Apprenticeship Contractor Training Program, where you can stoke up on all the practical knowledge a piping professional needs to have -- plus be eligible to earn while you learn with a BAA contractor.

Is a Career in the Pipetrades Right for Me?

• Am I interested in how things work, and how to make them work?
• Do I usually come up with creative solutions to problems?
• Am I prepared to take an aptitude test based on mechanical reasoning, spatial relationships, and numerical reasoning?
• Am I ready to invest the time and effort in a career that can deliver a high level of satisfaction and a very good income?

If you answered "yes" to those questions ... Read on!

What Do Piping Tradespeople Do Anyway?
Piping tradespeople - plumbers, steamfitters and pipefitters - install building systems that carry water, steam, gases and various chemicals to provide power, heating, cooling, refrigeration and sanitation. These are comforts we take for granted.

Piping tradespeople work from drawings and blueprints. They cut, bend, weld, and join piping systems that go into everything from homes to hospitals, skyscrapers, tunnels, and much more. You can find them doing their work in new construction as well as maintaining existing constructions.

Who Do Piping Tradespeople Work For?
Union pipe tradespeople are independent "journeymen". That means they are members of the union and work for mechanical contractors - firms are not the ones who provide the working, moving systems in a given building. This includes heating and cooling, as well as process-driven systems such as refrigeration or the flow of liquids on a production line.

As A Member of Local 85, You'll Be A Trained Professional
When your application is accepted for the Local 85 Apprenticeship Contractor Training Program, you will begin your plumbing apprenticeship at Local 85 in Saginaw. During your 5-year apprenticeship program, you will learn plumbing, pipefitting, welding, isometric drawing, template layout, blueprint reading and mathematics. You will study computer assisted drawing, plus all the latest in safety techniques. From pumps to pneumatic controls from soldering to steam boilers and more, you will earn the licenses to make you a solid professional.

The PipeTrades: Not Just A Job - A Career!
The future promises maximum job security in Michigan. And your training in the pipetrades is also "portable" to anywhere in the country. As a professional pipetrades member of Local 85, you will have generous benefits programs working for you, including healthcare, unemployment plans, and a strong retirement fund.

What's The Next Step?
If you answered "yes" to most of all the questions above, you will do well in the piping trades. So, join the Apprenticeship Contractor Training Program today by contacting us at: 1-800-LOCAL 85