Ende 2015 feierten die USA die "Nationale Ausbildungswoche". In diesem Zusammenhang ist die innovative Arbeit der Gewerkschaft im Baugewerbe und ihrer Mitgliedsunternehmen zu nennen. Seit mehr als 100 Jahren betreiben sie eine Handwerkerausbildung, um die sie die Welt beneidet.
North America's Building Trades Unions: Increasing Apprenticeship Opportunities Through Innovation
As our nation celebrates National Apprenticeship Week, it is worth noting
that for over 100 years North America’s Building Trades Unions and its signatory
contractors have funded and operated a skilled craft apprenticeship system that
is the envy of the world. Our apprenticeship and apprenticeship-readiness
programs are a tried and true job-training strategy that offers a reliable path
to the middle class without saddling workers with debt.
Today, our
unions and our signatory contractors invest over 1 billion dollars a
year to fund and operate over 1,600 joint labor-management training centers that
produce the safest, most highly-skilled and productive craft workers found
anywhere in the world.
And, we are leading the construction industry in
innovative workforce development by providing increased opportunity to
underserved communities and diversifying the construction workforce through the
use of apprenticeship readiness programs and modern curriculum.
Our
readiness programs use the Multi-Craft Core Curriculum, a comprehensive,
120-hour apprenticeship preparation curriculum. The MC3 provides a gateway for
community residents to gain access to Building Trades registered
apprenticeships, which are jointly administered by labor and management. In
2012, the Department of Labor recognized the MC3 with its Registered
Apprenticeship Innovator and Trailblazer Award.
The Multi-Craft Core
Curriculum is offered in cooperation with state and local Building Trades
Councils, local community groups, government agencies and schools.
In
Sacramento, California, the Sacramento-Sierra Building Trades Council sponsored
an apprenticeship readiness program with support from the NBA's Sacramento Kings
that has targeted "high Need" workers for jobs on the Kings new downtown arena
project. The project is being built under a project labor agreement and has
exceeded the Kings' goals for local hiring and use of local contractors so
far.
In Augusta, Georgia, the local Building Trades Council began
training apprenticeship candidates for work at the Plant Vogtle Nuclear Project
in November 2014. They worked with local Building Trades apprenticeship
coordinators, Southern Company, Chicago Bridge and Iron, the Burke County Board
of Education, local Workforce Investment Boards and Goodwill of Central
Georgia.
The goal of the program is to train 150 apprenticeship
candidates, targeting women, people of color and transitioning veterans, to work
at the Plant Vogtle facility and other Building Trades projects in the Augusta
area. The first three graduating classes show that 82 per cent of program
graduates were persons of color, 41 per cent were female and 11 per
cent were transitioning veterans.
North America's Trade Unions is
also the principal supporter of the Helmets to Hardhats (H2H) program. In 2015,
H2H placed over 1,600 veterans in Building Trades registered apprenticeship
programs around the country, and since its inception it has placed over 20,000
veterans into skilled craft apprenticeship programs.
One of those
veterans was Dawn Renee Benitez, a one-time staff sergeant with the U.S. Army,
Dawn earned an Iraq Campaign Medal with a Campaign Star.
Unfortunately,
and like all too many of America's veterans, Dawn found it increasingly
difficult to find meaningful employment and career options in civilian life.
But, through the joint efforts of Southern Company, Georgia Power and the
Helmets to Hardhats program, Dawn is now on the path to securing a stable career
as a union ironworker.
Skilled craft apprenticeship programs offer the
necessary capacity, resources and flexibility needed to help Americans from all
walks of life achieve and retain construction careers in the great American
middle class, while simultaneously assisting local construction employers obtain
the skilled workforce they need to help drive growth locally. We have done that
for the last 80 years, and plan to lead on apprenticeship for the next 80 years,
too.
- Filed in "Apprenticeship" by Sean McGarvey, Sean McGarvey is the president of the North America's Building Trades Unions.