...Schools focus on college prep, not blue-collar careers
• Helping to create industry consor-
tiums (clusters of businesses in the
same overall market that require work-
ers with similar skills) that could fore-
cast their collective workforce needs
instead of waiting and then raiding
each other’s workers;
• Identifying high-skill, high-de-
mand occupations, and then giving
training grants to individuals willing to
work in those jobs, with those currently
on public assistance getting priority;
• Making it easier to get information
about the necessary pathways to high-
(From Page 1)
tem too often overlooks union appren-
ticeship programs, and invests in re-
dundant programs at community col-
leges.
And sometimes, the shortage is
quite plainly due to a lack of employer
commitment to train the workers
they’ll later need.
At some local electric utilities,
heavy overtime — in some cases over
600 hours a year — is an early symp-
tom of a labor shortage among jour-
neyman linemen. Travis Eri, business
manager of IBEW
Local 125, says
over 40 percent of UA Local 290 got no response to its
his membership
invitation to Wilsonville, Tigard-Tualatin and
— mostly utility
workers — will be Sherwood school districts offering them the
eligible to retire in use of their state-of-the-art training center
the next five years. to help students understand how the math
It takes three and a
and science and grammar they study could
half years of ap-
prenticeship to be- help them win entry into careers in the pipe
come a journey-
trades.
man lineman, but
journeymen aver-
age $33 an hour,
so for many apprentice openings, over
wage careers; and
a hundred people apply.
• Better linking K-12 education to
In the past, utilities didn’t skimp on workforce needs.
training, but Eri thinks this has changed
That last idea is something unions
at large investor-owned utilities, where
have been asking for for years.
understaffing may be a strategy to
“There is a lack of vocational edu-
boost short-term profits. The worst of-
cation in high schools today,” Shiprack
fender is currently PacifiCorp, which
said. “I had shop class in grade school,
cut its apprentice training program af-
and four years of it in Marshall [High
ter it was bought by Warren Buffett’s
School].”
Mid-American Energy Holdings Com-
“There was a real tie between blue-
pany. Previously-hired apprentices will collar jobs and education when I was in
continue in their training, but Pacifi-
school,” Chamberlain, a firefighter,
Corp said it will hire no new appren-
adds. “Now, we know that there’s an
tices in 2007.
attitude in our K-12 system that pushes
But Witt said he hears from many
kids toward college, whether they end
good employers who are planning for
up there or not.”
the future and are willing to commit
And the problem is, union officials
their own resources, and still want gov- say, an exclusive focus on college prep
ernment to help, at least by maximiz-
doesn’t well serve the three-quarters of
ing the use of resources already being
high school graduates who don’t go on
spent.
to college.
Witt expects his committee will
Witt calls it the lost decade: “Union
support a set of ideas being proposed
apprentice programs say the average
by the governor.
age of their applicants is late 20s.
Those include:
These young people banged around in
• Making an Oregon high school
low-skilled jobs for 10 years before
diploma a thing of value to employers,
finding their way to a career track.”
by ensuring that it means competence
Last October, one local union made
in core skills like reading, math and
its own attempt to expose young peo-
science, as well as problem solving,
ple to the skilled trades “pipeline.”
communication ability and teamwork;
Tualatin-based Plumbers and
Steamfitters Local 290, foreseeing ris-
ing demand for their trade as new en-
ergy facilities break ground in coming
years, wrote to the superintendents of
the Wilsonville, Tigard-Tualatin and
Sherwood school districts and offered
them the use of their multimillion-dol-
lar state-of-the-art training center, to
help students understand how the math
and science and grammar they study
could help them win entry into lucra-
tive and worthwhile careers. There
would be no charge to the district, and
the union would even pay for the “con-
sumables” — acetylene oxygen, etc.
“Our journeymen make over $30 an
hour on the check, and have a total
wage and benefit package of $50 an
hour,” said Local 290 Business Man-
ager John Endicott. “That’s not a bad
living. And our apprenticeship program
means they earn while they learn.”
Local 290 got no response to its in-
vitation. The union followed up with
letters to the board members of the dis-
tricts, with the same offer. Still no re-
sponse. The union is pretty steamed
about the brush-off, but union officials
are trying to stay positive and plan to
attend board meetings in the near fu-
ture to continue the outreach.
“Skilled labor has sort of fallen out
of fashion in school,” said Norm Eder,
executive director of Manufacturing
21, a workforce training advocacy
group made up of manufacturers, com-
munity colleges and the Oregon AFL-
CIO. “Teachers and high school coun-
selors are themselves doing a different
BOB BAUGH
kind of labor, and don’t necessarily tell
students that there are fabulous careers
in the skilled trades.”
Eder’s group hopes to change that,
and last year kicked off a pilot project
in Clackamas County called “Manu-
facturing Road Trip.” Teachers and
counselors were given tours of local
manufacturing operations, and heard
from human resources people about
the growing skills shortage.
Eder acknowledges there’s another
side to the culture shift: Manufacturing
has a serious image problem. Young
people don’t think manufacturing is a
stable and rewarding career direction,
and mass layoffs like the 800 an-
nounced by Freightliner Jan. 26 only
add to the perception it’s a doomed,
shrinking sector.
That’s one of the themes Witt heard
from Bob Baugh, head of the national
AFL-CIO’s Industrial Union Council,
who came to testify at a Jan. 19 hearing
of Witt’s Workforce Committee.
“Neoconservative economists want
to tell you, ‘Don’t worry about job loss,
don’t worry about what’s happening in
manufacturing,’ ” said Baugh, a former
secretary-treasurer of the Oregon AFL-
CIO. “It’s really the fault of the worker.
They just need to get smarter. They just
need more training and education.’”
“I support training and education,”
Baugh continued. “I want our work-
force to have the greatest skills in the
world. But it’s like giving your kid
swimming lessons, getting their swim-
suit on and saying ‘Now go jump in the
pool,’ but nobody’s paying attention to
see that the drains are unplugged and
the water’s going down.”
Oregon may be an exception, Eder
says, with a stronger, more competitive
manufacturing sector than many states.
But either way, if there’s one thing all
sides can agree on, it’s that relentless
hype about the “information economy”
has drowned out voices arguing for the
continued importance of building and
making things.
Makers and builders hope to regain
their voice this legislative session, and
may work with organized labor to pro-
duce the needed cultural shift.
“There’s this impression that if it’s
not college track, it’s second class,”
Witt said. “But we need to have the
highest level of skills for tradespeople
as well.”
Gradine Storms
Real Estate Broker
Member of CWA
Local 7901
E-Mail: gstorms@equitygroup.com
www.equitygroup.com/gstorms
FEBRUARY 2, 2007
7886 SE 13th Ave.
Portland, Oregon 97202
Direct: 503-495-4932
Branch: 503-233-8883
Each Office Independently Owned and Operated
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
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