"Tom Gardner" wrote in message
. ..
I need to know the legal requirements for someone to call himself a
"Machinist" I have assumed it involved a certification and legitimate
training.

There are different levels of machinist to tool & die maker. All are based
on union specifications in order to tally ability with pay scales. If
management and the union agree that an apprentice will earn ten bucks an
hour, and a master machinist will earn 40 an hour, then you have a scale
that both parties can agree on.

Since unions in most shops is becoming a non-issue, for example they call
the Boeing assemblers machinists, but they do not machine, they assemble.
But the majority of shops providing parts to be assembled at auto and
aircraft plants are non union and use mostly masters at machining plus some
lever pullers, the whole thing begs to be defined in today's terms but
nobody is going to touch that third rail.

Wayne