The Stages of the High-steel Ironworker Apprentice Career*

This paper describes the contingencies and stages of the ironworker apprentice career. The analysis of nine months of participant observation data, most of which was collected by observing ironworkers throughout the construction of a twenty-one story office building, indicates four critical career stages that ironworker apprentices must successfully negotiate in their movement towards acceptance as trusted co-workers. Each of the career stages: sponsorship, “punking,” initiative taking, and “getting scale” involves the work group or its representatives testing and assessing apprentices. These evaluations are communicated to the apprentice and other ironworkers and provide the apprentice a basis for assessing his progress and gauging his suitability for more responsible and often times more risky demonstrations of competence. Ironworkers perceive their work as extremely perilous and their danger increases while working with inexperienced neophytes. The workers must rely on the coordinated and trustworthy actions of co-workers and the ever-present threats to their safety lead them to develop and enforce processes of continuous surveillance, testing, and evaluation of all workers. These processes are most stringently applied to apprentices but apply through-out the ironworker career.