Well give us some insight.
when i was an apprentice, one of the owners of a shop i was
working for explained the FLE's, so i'd know what was going on
as i worked around. he had traveled for about 12 years extensively,
at a time when that was a pretty profitable way to make a living.
while not longer active in the organization, he'd been there and done that.
so, it was a lineman's local absorbed back in the day by the IBEW,
and their original membership was pretty tightly knit, and they had
a network of communication that would make the web proud. when
there was work, particularly overtime work, the word went out, and
the people showed up.
they tended to favor large budget industrial and power generating work,
the boom of nuclear power plants was really their day in the sun.
i've been on two large jobs that were mostly manned by FLE's.
budweiser brewery, van nuys, 1982
hughes electro optic, el segundo, 1983
at the time, that was the largest construction job in the US.
i cleared out there the week it went 7-12's.
FLE's present? ya think?
there were about 500 guys working with the tools, and another
100 in various supervisory capacities.
i was told rather matter of factly not to "break down conditions".
so, after that, when i asked my foreman for something to do,
after he told me what he wanted done, i asked him when he
wanted to see me again for another task.
and i didn't bother him until the appointed time. i stayed out
of sight, got my job done, and didn't get in anyones face.
and my tool buddy and i drove my ford van to work. the week after
we got there, one of the welders welded a lot of the import car doors
in the parking lot shut. nice little 1" beads. sprayed cold gal spray on
them, so they wouldn't rust. he was, after all, a professional.
nobody was sober.
there were empty jack bottles everywhere.
you could buy cocaine on the job. saved having to run out on
your lunch break to get some. this was before crack, but you
could smell the sharp odor of either from the freebase being
smoked up on the catwalks.
as for getting some, hookers were plying their trade in building two's
fan rooms. i don't believe they were union, however.
one of the guys on the job, who was not a FLE, was wearing a colt
python and two speedloaders on his tool belt. nobody bothered him.
when it became known he had been my journeyman when i was a
second year apprentice, nobody bothered me much.
nobody was paying taxes. everyone was filing "exempt" and
transposing numbers on their SSN's. nobody asked to see
a Social Security card.
after a month, there was a posse made up of IRS agents and
federal marshals who raided the job, looking for tax evaders.
my friend with the python on his tool list informed me that
in the area we were working, myself, my tool buddy, and he
were the only folks who were not FLE's. i believed him.
i was told to behave myself, and be polite. and i did.
i also remember the day a senior ninth district business rep
showed up with two "assistants" and faced down what i was
later told was one of the main folk in the FLE's on the job.
it was interesting. he walked up in a seriously expensive suit,
all of about 5'9", and said in a thick irish brogue....
"ay laddie, you're causing me a bit of a bother here... i think
it's about time for you to be moving on..."
it would have been a good scene in the movie goodfellas. after
a bit of sputtering, the guy just walked over, picked up his tools,
and walked to his car. that was the last i saw of him.
the reason i suspect that being told i was the only non FLE in
that part of building two was true, is that the wobble the day
after the fellow took off, my toolie and i were about the only
people in building two who didn't know, and showed up.
not a good place to be. we promptly left.
so, what do i know about FLE's? not a lot. don't get on their
bad side. don't "break down their conditions." don't drive an
import car to work.
and don't show up for work when you are the only one there.