Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 562 Builds Careers, Infrastructure, and Opportunity

When most people walk into a convenience store, turn on an air conditioner, or open a faucet, they rarely think about the skilled workers behind those systems.

Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 562 Business Manager and Secretary-Treasurer John O’Mara sees something different.

“If you want to know what we’re doing, just pull into a QuikTrip,” O’Mara said.

Local 562 members may have installed the underground fuel tanks, sewers, drains, plumbing, refrigeration equipment, walk-in coolers, ice machines, soda machines, and heating and cooling systems that keep the business operating.

Their work extends far beyond convenience stores. Local 562 members work in breweries, power plants, fabrication shops, commercial buildings, industrial facilities, water treatment plants, and wastewater treatment plants throughout the region.

The union represents plumbers, pipefitters, HVAC and refrigeration technicians, welders, fabrication workers, and other professionals across 67 counties in eastern Missouri. Local 562 operates training facilities in the St. Louis area, Fulton, and Cape Girardeau, with an additional St. Louis-area building recently purchased to expand its training capacity.

That investment comes as Local 562 leaders anticipate years of increased construction and industrial activity, particularly in and around Jefferson County.

“This is one of the bright spots,” O’Mara said of the county. “We’ve always had members that lived in that region, but it wasn’t always an area where we did a lot of work. That’s changed.”

Building and Maintaining the Community

Many construction trades complete their portion of a building and move to the next project. Mechanical, electrical, and plumbing professionals often remain connected to that building throughout its useful life.

Local 562 members do not simply install the original plumbing, piping, refrigeration, and mechanical equipment. They also maintain, service, repair, and eventually replace those systems.

“You not only build the building, but you maintain it, the equipment, and service the equipment for the lifetime of the building,” a Local 562 representative said. “It’s not only the new construction. You’re always going to have the service plumbing. You’re going to have the service of the equipment, and you’re going to have the HVAC side.”

That long-term responsibility makes a trained local workforce important to the stability of a growing community. The workers building Jefferson County’s next commercial development, manufacturing facility, or infrastructure project may also be the people called upon to keep it operating years later.

For Local 562 families, that creates a connection to the community that can last for generations.

O’Mara said experienced members frequently return to buildings where they worked decades earlier. When older systems are removed, they remember how the original work was completed and share that knowledge with the younger members installing the next generation of equipment.

“You talk to some of these members, and they’ll say, ‘I worked there 35 years ago,’” O’Mara said. “They’ll tear some of your work out that you did 30 years ago, start to chat about it, and then they’re putting new, really innovative stuff into these spaces.”

Technology Is Changing the Trades

The image of the skilled trades as work performed only with wrenches, torches, and welding equipment no longer captures the full profession.

Local 562 members now use tablets, computerized layout equipment, battery-powered tools, virtual design systems, and advanced diagnostic technology. Entire jobsites can be organized from an iPad, while digital layout systems help workers place complex piping and mechanical systems with greater precision.

O’Mara said technological changes are especially noticeable in the HVAC and refrigeration fields.

“The biggest part of technology change is coming in the HVAC world, and it’s been changing for 35 or 40 years,” he said. “It never sits still.”

Because these systems involve electricity, pressurized equipment, refrigerants, and other potentially dangerous components, new technology must be introduced alongside extensive safety training.

O’Mara said younger members are embracing that challenge.

“It’s fun to watch the men and women, how they grasp a hold of all the technology and run with it,” he said. “They’re not afraid to put an iPad in their hand and do work that way.”

That comfort with technology is also changing how apprentices learn. Rather than simply being told what to install, O’Mara said younger workers frequently want to understand how the entire system operates and why each component is necessary.

“The younger generations are actually learning what the system does and how it works way better than we did,” O’Mara said. “These guys are actually going, ‘What’s this thing? Why are we doing this? Why does this thing work the way it does?’”

Creating a Path Into the Trades

Local 562 leaders say one of their most important responsibilities is showing young people and their parents that the skilled trades offer more than a temporary job.

They offer a career.

The union has worked to make its application and recruiting process easier to understand, including bringing in a professional recruiter to improve how prospective members find the organization, submit their information, and move through the process.

Local 562 also works with technical schools and community colleges to help prospective apprentices build foundational skills before entering the union’s five-year apprenticeship program.

O’Mara specifically highlighted Jefferson College, Ranken Technical College, St. Charles Community College, and other regional programs that offer welding, HVAC, and technical education.

“Our communities have stepped up with these trade schools and the things they’re teaching,” O’Mara said. “We’re taking a group that kind of gets it to start, and then we start training them on some different things. By the time they’re five years into their apprenticeship, they’re pretty darn good.”

The goal is not simply to teach one task. Apprentices are introduced to a broad industry with opportunities in plumbing, pipefitting, welding, HVAC, refrigeration, fabrication, digital design, project management, supervision, and business ownership.

“They no longer just want to be a plumber or be a pipefitter the rest of their life,” O’Mara said. “They want to be an owner of a company. They want to be in that office. There are all kinds of opportunities outside of just using drills, hammers, and saws.”

Fabrication shops in Jefferson County provide another important training ground. Inside a controlled environment, newer workers can develop their skills without facing the weather, congestion, and constant activity of a large construction site.

Local 562 representatives said the union wants the workforce serving Jefferson County to be built from the communities where the work is happening.

“We want to educate parents on what the building trades programs bring and the opportunities for their kids,” one representative said. “It’s a chance of a lifetime for a lifetime job.”

Meeting the Infrastructure Challenge

The need for skilled workers is growing as water systems, power facilities, commercial buildings, and other essential infrastructure across the country reach the age when major repairs and upgrades become necessary.

“When you take a ride around any community in the United States, they’ve all aged,” O’Mara said. “In our business, water is a big deal. Certainly, energy is a big deal with power and new and different power plants.”

Local 562’s work touches many of the systems families and businesses depend upon every day. Members help deliver clean water, safely remove wastewater, provide heating and cooling, support manufacturing, transport fuel, and maintain the mechanical systems inside public and private buildings.

According to O’Mara, nearly every water and wastewater treatment plant in the region relies on work performed by Local 562 contractors and members.

“Ninety-nine percent of infrastructure, all the water systems need upgrades,” he said. “The power plants need upgrades. Everything that we’re involved in is part of what’s happening right now.”

The expected construction activity brings opportunity, but O’Mara said it also carries responsibility. Local 562 must recruit enough people, select individuals who are prepared to learn, and provide training that protects the union’s standards.

“This wave of work is awesome, but we can screw it up, too, if we don’t do it the right way,” O’Mara said. “If we don’t find the right people and get these young men and women trained the way we want them to, we’ll be no different than our competition.”

That is why the union continues to invest in instructors, equipment, facilities, and ongoing education.

“The training has gone to a way different level because we’ve spent a lot of money on it,” O’Mara said. “We’ve got a lot of teachers, and we’ve got a lot of things. None of it is cheap.”

Consistent Work and a Future for Families

O’Mara said the current generation of apprentices is entering a much different construction industry than the one many longtime members experienced.

Construction once carried an expectation that workers might be laid off between projects or lose weeks of work during the winter. O’Mara said many members who entered Local 562 five or six years ago have experienced steady employment without those extended interruptions.

“It’s consistent work. It’s consistent paychecks,” he said. “You’re getting some pretty good retirement benefits built up. All kinds of things are happening because you’ve got a steady job every single day.”

That consistency allows members to buy homes, raise families, prepare for retirement, and spend more time participating in their own communities.

Local 562 leaders say keeping projects and skilled workers close to home is an important part of that mission. When Jefferson County attracts major projects, local union members have a greater opportunity to work near their families instead of traveling across the state or country for months at a time.

It also keeps more of the project’s economic impact within the community. Local workers earn their paychecks here, support businesses here, pay taxes here, and help strengthen the schools, organizations, and neighborhoods their families call home.

A Labor Day Built Around Family and Pride

For O’Mara, Labor Day is not primarily about political disagreements, picket signs, or confrontations.

It is about families recognizing the skill, professionalism, and service of working people.

“Anytime we have parades, anytime we gather, it’s about the family,” O’Mara said. “It’s truly about how we’ve created a really good product in this country and how we maintain it.”

He said union members should be proud of the standards they carry onto a jobsite and the buildings and systems they leave behind.

“It’s literally becoming a professional worker to where you’re better than your competition,” O’Mara said. “The celebration day is a day to be proud to be union. No doubt about it.”

That pride can be seen when a plumber or pipefitter drives through the community with a child or grandchild and points to a school, business, factory, or treatment plant.

“I helped build that.”

For generations of Local 562 members, those words represent more than a completed project. They represent a career, a family supported, a skill passed forward, and a community prepared for what comes next.

“Labor is important to this country,” O’Mara said. “It’s a proud day for all of us.”

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