Labor nonprofit helps OPEIU, HealthPartners bring learn-and-earn training to life

July 21, 2023 by

Supporters of the clinic assistant training program joined a celebration and press conference June 29. Pictured (L to R) are Jeff Ambroz, Kelsie Anderson, Mayor Melvin Carter and HealthPartners’ Lynzee Herfindahl and James McClean. (OPEIU photo)

Office and Professional Employees Local 12 and the Minnesota Training Partnership have tapped federal pandemic-relief funds to launch an earn-while-you-learn training program that will prepare young workers for in-demand jobs as clinic assistants with HealthPartners and other providers.

The program is open to Ramsey County residents ages 18 to 30. Coursework will take place both online and in person over the course of eight to 12 weeks, beginning in September. And best of all, participants will get a weekly stipend – the equivalent of $15 per hour over a 32-hour workweek – as they complete the training and search for jobs.

The clinic assistant program is among the training opportunities sponsored by Ramsey County’s new Learn and Earn Initiative, a joint venture with the City of Saint Paul that will invest $14.65 million in American Rescue Plan funds toward workforce development.

Officials announced the new training opportunities at a press conference in downtown St. Paul June 29.

Ramsey County Commissioner Rena Moran, who took a lead role in the city-county collaboration, said Learn and Earn partner agencies will provide 700 young workers with training in entrepreneurship, information technology, tree care, diesel technology and other fields over the next two years.

“That’s a true impact,” Moran said. “We are so excited to see the amazing impact that these investments will have on our young residents – and what that will bring to all of us in Ramsey County.”

“The work that we’re doing together with our federal partners, with our county partners, with the nonprofit folks … this work is critical,” St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter said, adding that the program represents “democratized, equitable opportunity” for communities that have long faced institutional barriers to prosperity.

Offering a stipend to trainees removes a significant barrier for many jobseekers, Minnesota Training Partnership (MTP) Director of Develop-ment and Communications Jeff Ambroz said. MTP is the county’s nonprofit partner for the clinic assistant program.

“It’s going to open doors for a lot more people to participate,” he said. “For many young adults looking to enter a training program like this without a stipend, they would have to find a way to pay the rent, make the car payment or maybe cover child care. Most lower- to middle-income people can’t do that.

“This paid training program will give people a chance to get on the path to a great career, and we definitely wanted to be part of that.”

OPEIU Local 12 members who work at HealthPartners – which supported development of the clinic assistant training program – earn over $20 per hour to start, with industry-leading health benefits.

But like so many employers in recent years, HealthPartners has struggled with staffing shortfalls, Local 12 Business Representative Kelsie Anderson said. Finding qualified clinic assistants, who check in patients at the front desk, answer phones and handle other clerical work, has been particularly challenging since the COVID outbreak.

It’s become a point of frustration for other clinic workers, too.

“HealthPartners kept telling us there’s not any qualified candidates that are applying for this position,” said Anderson, who was a longtime HealthPartners employee before taking a position with her union. “And because we’re so short staffed, I’m not sure if HealthPartners is giving the best training opportunities to the people they do hire, because they don’t have the bodies to do it.”

Last year, when Ambroz checked in with Local 12 leaders about potential training ideas, the lightbulb went on. HealthPartners offered insight into the job description, and MTP enlisted St. Paul College to help build the right curriculum.

Ambroz said the clinic assistant training program is exactly the type of venture that leaders of the Minnesota AFL-CIO had in mind when they founded the Minnesota Training Partnership as a nonprofit organization in 2019.

“Union leaders have so many great ideas about ways to help their members build up their skills,” Ambroz said. “We try to find ways to find funding and help facilitate that, by letting them take the lead in a union-driven training.”

“Our union leadership has really emphasized training and education,” Anderson added. “But if it wasn’t for the Minnesota Training Partnership, we would never have been able to do this.”

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Expo shows off 49ers’ training center, apprenticeship program

April 18, 2018 by

Construction vendors showcase their newest heavy equipment at the New Iron Expo April 3-5.

HINCKLEY – Dominic Bergerson skipped school on a Thursday morning to play video games and drive heavy equipment around in the mud, but the 17-year-old wasn’t playing hooky.

He was exploring career opportunities.

Bergerson was among some 1,000 people who attended the New Iron Expo during its three-day run April 3-5 at Operating Engineers Local 49’s training center. The event featured over 100 vendors, who allowed prospective operators, journey-level workers, contractors and industry insiders to kick the tires on dozens of the newest heavy equipment models.

“I’m trying to figure out what I’m supposed to be doing with my life,” Bergerson said in between turns on a backhoe video simulator. “This is a good way to start.”

Reaching “future 49ers” like Bergerson, Business Manager Glen Johnson said, was the union’s primary objective in hosting an expo for the second time in three years.

“This expo was to promote the training that we do and this training center – and the opportunity to be able to get into the Operating Engineers and have a career,” he added.

Six-year-old Jayden Maslow and his dad, Roman, an Operating Engineer from Braham, push some dirt  together during the New Iron Expo. Jayden skipped school to attend the event.

The 49ers’ training grounds sprawl across 400 acres of land east of Hinckley. The $10 million facility opened in 2006, and an estimated 5,000 people pass through each year, from apprentices working on their credits to journey-level members keeping their certifications up to date.

The union takes pride in keeping the training center a state-of-the-art facility, so that its graduates are ready to meet the industry’s labor needs – and equipped with the skills to adapt as the industry changes. Local 49 recently invested in GPS technology, increasingly embedded into heavy equipment, and it added a pipeline training area with a grant from its international union.

The facility itself reflects the kind of “smart build” technology at the cutting edge of the construction industry. A geothermal energy field on campus powers the training center’s buildings, producing enough energy to sell back to the electric grid as a backup source – an arrangement that allows the local to keep its energy bills near zero.

“We’ll be here forever,” Johnson said of the training center. “The facility was built like a college campus, and it’s built to last.”

During the expo, Local 49 business agents led bus tours that snaked through the different training grounds, where apprentices get hands-on experience operating cranes, pile drivers, bulldozers, excavators and other machines.

Simulators inside Local 49’s training center offered an opportunity to work on technique before climbing inside the real equipment. “It’s all muscle memory,” Local 49 business agent Darrell Miller said. “With enough repetition, it comes.”

“Operating engineers aren’t getting born; we’ve got to make them,” business agent Will Thomssen told a bus full of visitors. “That’s our job as a local union, and this is about letting our members know and our contractors know how we do it.”

At the end of the bus tour was the big show: fields bustling with heavy equipment as far as the eye could see. Vendor representatives stood ready to show off their products or give a quick tutorial to anyone interested in climbing into the operator’s chair.

“The industry is manufacturing new equipment and attachments and all sorts of stuff every day,” Johnson said. “Where do you get to go to see a lot of it in one place?”

For Bergerson, the 17-year-old skipping school, that was exactly the appeal. After setting a high score on the backhoe simulator, he headed out to try the real thing.

“Right when I hopped in that door,” he said, “it was like, ‘Woah, this is a lot tougher than I thought.’”

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#NAW2016: Apprenticeship helps MN manufacturers boost skills, stay competitive

November 17, 2016 by
Pictured on the Hood Packaging shop floor in Arden Hills: (L to R) USW’s Gerry Parzino, Beth diGrazia, USW member and apprentice Larteng Kong, apprentice Dave Frisk, USW member and apprentice Andy Ramirez, Mike Ramirez and Local 264 President John O’Neil.

Pictured on the Hood Packaging shop floor in Arden Hills: (L to R) USW’s Gerry Parzino, Beth diGrazia, USW member and apprentice Larteng Kong, apprentice Dave Frisk, USW member and apprentice Andy Ramirez, Mike Ramirez and Local 264 President John O’Neil.

 

About 85 percent of registered apprentices in Minnesota are employed in the construction trades, but federal grant funds are helping more of the state’s manufacturers harness the power of apprenticeship to boost their employees’ skills – and remain competitive in a global economy.

Hood Packaging is among a growing number of firms taking advantage of a free registered apprenticeship program for industrial workers, sponsored by the AFL-CIO’s Working for America Institute.

A privately owned company with 20 production facilities in the U.S. and Canada, Hood employs about 86 people at a facility in Arden Hills, where members of United Steelworkers Local 264 print and laminate poly-film packaging for salted snacks and pet food.

When the Steelworkers came to Operations Manager Michael Ramirez with a pitch for the apprenticeship program, Ramirez and human resources officer Beth diGrazia jumped at the opportunity.

“For a lot of our workers, this isn’t just a job they’re going to leave; these are careers,” diGrazia said. “We want to keep them here, so if we have folks who want to learn more, we want to give them that opportunity.”

Four Hood employees – three Steelworkers and a manager – are currently enrolled in the fourth semester of the 18-month program. Every Thursday evening, they assemble in a conference room with two large screens and connect via Skype with an instructor, as well as apprentices from other Minnesota manufacturing firms.

Coursework ranges from safety to quality control and beyond, and it’s typical for apprentices to receive up to six hours of homework each week. They take quizzes and tests, and receive a grade at the end of each course.

So far, all four Hood apprentices are keeping their grade point average above 3.0.

“They’re doing their work,” United Steelworkers representative Gerry Parzino said. “I don’t think you get those grades by accident.”

If they keep it up, the apprentices, who are paid for the time they spend in class, will complete the program – and receive their journeyperson cards – in June 2017.

“These guys are showing the initiative,” diGrazia said. “They’re stepping up. And we hope they’ll never leave the company, but it is something that’s transferable, and it definitely looks good on their resume.”

For Ramirez, the apprenticeship program is providing Hood with future leaders ready to help train their co-workers, troubleshoot problems on the shop floor and keep an eye out for safety issues. He’s already seeing results: Hood sent 15 employees through the apprenticeship’s safety course last January, and the Arden Hills facility hasn’t had a safety incident since then.

“It’s the longest stretch we’ve ever gone at this facility without any recordable or lost-time incidents,” Ramirez said. “And that’s a direct effect of these guys going through that program and using that info on the floor. The results speak for themselves.”

Parzino wants to see other union employers take advantage of the industrial apprenticeship program, which Ramirez called “a big win-win for all of us.”

“To be competitive, we need the highest trained workforce we can possibly have,” Parzino said. “In Wisconsin, some of these programs have brought back products that were being manufactured in India. So we know this can have an impact.

“It’s all about job security, quality and being competitive, and we can keep these manufacturing jobs. We think by working with the employers and with our members to keep them as trained as possible, these kinds of programs are going to keep us competitive.”

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Native pride meets union pride in Cement Masons’ training program

August 2, 2016 by
For their final project, participants in Local 633's pre-apprenticeship program finish their own flat concrete slabs with attached curbs.

For their final project, participants in Local 633’s pre-apprenticeship program finish their own flat concrete slabs with attached curbs.

 

NEW BRIGHTON – As the first trickle of mud oozed out of the concrete truck’s chute, 13 trainees dressed in hardhats, safety vests and tall rubber boots sprung into action, using shovels and trowels to distribute the concrete evenly across 13 rectangular slabs.

The July heat was pushing 90 degrees, and the trainees, participants in a unique pre-apprenticeship program co-sponsored by the Cement Masons and area tribal authorities, worked in silence, heads down, as their instructors barked orders and critiqued their work.

“Let’s go, you’ve got to pick up the pace,” Local 633 apprenticeship instructor Moke Eaglefeathers warned three trainees as they leveled and smoothed one of the slabs. “Those guys over there are waiting on you. You’re falling behind.”

Concrete, any cement mason will tell you, is a perishable product. The brighter the sun, the shorter the lifespan. And the trainees, working on their final project of the program, wouldn’t get more than one shot to do the job right.

“Guys, this is the real world here. This is how fast it moves,” Local 633 instructor Dave Schutta said. “We’re not trying to bury you, but this is just it. This is the real deal.”

Two days later, all 13 trainees – 11 men and two women – were back at the Local 633 training center in New Brighton. They had traded the boots and vests for more formal attire, and their friends and family members, tribal leaders and dignitaries from MnDOT and the state Department of Labor had gathered to watch them take one big step closer to working, as Schutta put it, in the real world.

They’d made it to graduation.

“They went through 12 weeks of hell,” Eaglefeathers said. “I’m pretty hard on them, and I do it on purpose. If they can handle me, they can handle any supervisor or foreman out there.”

A member of the Cheyenne Tribe from Montana, Eaglefeathers calls Local 633’s pre-apprenticeship program “his baby.” He began reaching out to tribal authorities in Minnesota and Wisconsin six years ago after growing “tired of hearing about how there were no skilled workers on the reservations,” he said.

Since then Local 633 has graduated four classes of pre-apprentices, thanks to funding support from the Tribal Employment Rights Office (TERO) and public agencies, currently MnDOT. The most recent graduates included members of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, the Ho-Chunk Nation, the Red Lake Nation and the Leech Lake and Mille Lacs Ojibwe bands.

At the graduation ceremony, state and tribal representatives offered the program high praise. For MnDOT, it’s the “longest and most physically intense program we have going right now,” Office of Civil Rights supervisor Maria Conley said, and it’s helping build a reserve of “ready-to-work individuals” for highway and construction projects on reservations across the state.

Local 633 instructor Moke Eaglefeathers tears up a little after graduates present him with an eagle feather at the end of the graduation ceremony.
Graduates of the latest Local 633 pre-apprenticeship training, with their instructors, are, L to R, (back) Payne Martinson, Lindsay Mason, Jarvis Goodsky, Alexa Goodsky, Russell Barrett, Billy Jo Garbow, David St. John, (middle) George White, Charles Robinson, Tony Beaulieu, Cameron Fisher, Jasmine Funmaker, Dave Schutta, Moke Eaglefeathers and (front) Mark Boshey.
Tony Beaulieu (L) accepts his plaque upon graduation from the pre-apprenticeship training.
Minnesota Department of Labor Commissioner Ken Peterson addresses graduates of the Cement Mason’s pre-apprenticeship program.
Pre-apprenticeship graduate Billy Joe Garbow of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe opens the graduation ceremony at Cement Masons Local 633’s hall in New Brighton with a peace song, singing and playing on a hand-crafted drum.

State Labor Commissioner Ken Peterson said programs like the Cement Masons’ are critical to making the construction trades workforce more reflective of the state’s broader demographics. Jobs in the trades used to be “reserved” for white males, but “things have changed a lot,” Peterson said. Now, apprenticeship programs statewide are creeping up on 20 percent women and minority participation. “And there’s still room to grow.”

On reservations where families struggle with unemployment, poverty, gang membership and other challenges, the training program offers a social benefit as well.

“You guys are going to be working in our communities, and you’re going to stabilize your families, stabilize your communities,” Bois Forte representative Ray Toutloff told graduates. “You’re all role models.”

Indeed, not everyone who started Local 633’s training program in late April made it to graduation 12 weeks later. Schutta and Eaglefeathers say they run the program like a jobsite, with strict rules about attendance and no tolerance for tardiness.

“When we do tool-recognition training, the first tool we bring out on the table is an alarm clock,” Schutta said. “The second is a backup battery.”

In addition to the “soft skills” necessary for employment, Local 633’s curriculum includes flat work, paving, curb-and-gutter technique, patching and decorative work – “skills that we’ll use for a lifetime,” according to Jasmine Funmaker, a graduate from the Ho-Chunk Nation.

Dave Schutta (R) pours concrete for David St. John (L) and Jarvis Goodsky.
David St. John
Lindsay Mason
Tony Beaulieu
Moke Eaglefeathers works with trainee Alexa Goodsky.
Jasmine Funmaker
Jasmine Funmaker (L) and Jarvis Goodsky

Picking up the craft took determination and patience, said Bois Forte member Alexa Goodsky, who left her job as a housekeeper at Fortune Bay hotel and casino to enroll in the training.

“It started getting progressively easier, and what I’m supposed to do got clearer as time went on,” Goodsky said. “Every time we pour, I’ve learned something new and gotten better.”

Goodsky’s sister graduated from the Cement Mason’s program last year and has been working in the field with JE Dunn Construction ever since. Hers is just one of several success stories that indicate graduates of the program are in high demand.

“These people can go out next Monday and fit right in on a jobsite, as opposed to somebody coming in off the street and filling out an application with no experience,” Schutta said.

Several even decide to continue their training as union apprentices.

“We show them the basics here,” Eaglefeathers said. “We show them the necessary work ethic. If they don’t want to be a concrete finisher, we’re fine with that. We’ll open the door for them to go into another trade so they can have a good life and provide for their families.

“Union life has that pension, that security, that pride. Like any Native American out there, I have pride, and I also have union pride. We show them that. We show them that going union is the best way to work.”

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Ken Peterson: Apprenticeship training meets workforce needs of today and tomorrow

November 5, 2015 by
Minnesota DLI Commissioner Ken Peterson

Minnesota DLI Commissioner Ken Peterson

Minnesota’s workforce is experiencing tremendous transition. Thousands of our experienced baby boomers are retiring, while many employers are seeking a workforce capable of meeting increased levels of skill to operate new technologies with precision.

An emerging, yet familiar, pathway for some employers to successfully bridge that gap is registered apprenticeship programs.

Registered apprenticeship programs have been referred to as “the other four-year degree” in Minnesota since they began in 1939. Through apprenticeship, Minnesotans have built careers — without debt — by combining paid on-the-job training with focused classroom education. Both at the workplace and in class, training is customized to meet employers’ needs.

As apprentices learn more they earn more and at the end of their apprenticeship they receive a state-issued, industry-recognized credential. Plus, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, a fully proficient worker who completes an apprenticeship earns about $50,000 each year.

Today, there are more than 11,000 registered apprentices in Minnesota. Three-fourths of them are in the construction trades, such as carpenters, laborers and electricians. These programs, financed by employers and unions, have a long history of providing high-caliber job preparation. They are also increasingly diverse, with women and racial minorities now accounting for more than 25 percent of construction apprentices.

Using the same “earn while you learn” model, the state of Minnesota hopes to expand registered apprenticeship opportunities in other industries during the next five years.

A new Minnesota Apprenticeship Initiative will be one way to expand those opportunities. More than 800 individuals, working for 100 employers around the state, will participate in newly registered apprenticeship programs in 29 high-growth occupations in advanced manufacturing, agriculture, health care, information technology and transportation. Everyone who completes a program will receive a credential that demonstrates they possess the skills needed for success in their field. The initiative is federally funded, but will be administered by state agencies.

Another program, the Minnesota PIPELINE Project, provides grants to employers for dual-training in an occupation for which their industry has designed competency standards. The work must be done in collaboration with a training provider and be in one of four industries: advanced manufacturing, agriculture, health care or information technology.

Large and small manufacturers, health care facilities, auto dealers and others have found that registered apprenticeships offer employer-driven solutions to help them recruit, train and retain highly skilled employees. They are good for employers, workers and Minnesota’s future.

For more information about registered apprenticeship programs, call the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry at 1-800-342-5354 or visit www.dli.mn.gov.

Ken Peterson, commissioner of Minnesota’s Department of Labor and Industry, wrote this column for Apprenticeship Week, observed Nov. 2-8 as proclaimed by Gov. Mark Dayton and the U.S. Department of Labor.

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Minnesotan named North America’s top tile apprentice

October 27, 2015 by
Brandon Peterson (R) and his instructor Sam Greenwood in BAC Local 1's New Hope training center.

Brandon Peterson (R) and his instructor Sam Greenwood in BAC Local 1’s New Hope training center.

The trophy on display in Local 1’s New Hope training center may be small, but the accomplishment behind it – Brandon Peterson’s first-place finish in the Bricklayers and Allied Craftworkers’ International Apprentice Contest – is as grand as they come.

Peterson, a 33-year-old apprentice tile setter from Ham Lake, advanced from local and regional tiling competitions to the international contest, held Sept. 10-11 at the International Masonry Institute (IMI) in Bowie, Md. There, he placed first, staking claim to the title of North America’s top tiling apprentice.

“It was kind of surreal,” Peterson said.

The IMI hosts the apprenticeship contest just once every four years. It’s timed to coincide with the BAC’s international convention, which draws union officers and delegates from across North America, as well as members of Congress and other dignitaries.

While delegates conducted business, 80 top apprentices got to work, competing in the BAC’s crafts, which include bricklaying, plastering, tilesetting, stone and marble masonry, terrazzo and mosaic work and PCC, or pointing, caulking and cleaning.

“Eighty apprentices competed in eight different craft categories,” BAC Local 1 President Michael J. Cook said. “The competition was intense. There were hundreds of spectators… But Brandon held his cool and kept his head down to complete his project in superior fashion.”

Brandon Peterson competes in the BAC IMI International Apprentice Contest's tiling category. Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

Brandon Peterson competes in the BAC IMI International Apprentice Contest’s tiling category. Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

 

‘Are you kidding me?’

For Peterson, the competition consisted of a 40-question written exam and a common project, which apprentices had less than five hours to complete using a limited quantity of tile and other supplies.

Officials distributed specs for the project to apprentices the night before the competition. It involved mudding a shower floor, setting a curb and tiling two of the shower walls with a decorative, pyramid-like mosaic – and it looked unlike any job Peterson had tackled in his training or his work for Minneapolis-based CD Tile & Stone.

“Looking at it the night before, I was like, are you kidding me?” he said. “But once you sit down, it’s just like going to work.”

As the tiling apprentices tackled their assignment, six judges paced the aisles between their work spaces, watching, conferring with each other and jotting down notes. To Sam Greenwood, Local 1’s tile and terrazzo training coordinator, the apprentices looked like “caged animals,” set apart from the crowd and highly scrutinized.

“It was a little intimidating,” Peterson acknowledged. “The judges don’t talk to you. If you did something right or wrong, you don’t know. You just keep going.”

Greenwood attributed Peterson’s success to the apprentice’s meticulous approach.

“There were people who probably did as good a job as Brandon in setting the tile, but they missed something – missed a detail, missed something little,” Greenwood said. “That’s what separated Brandon. He literally followed [the instructions] just perfectly, and they judge every step.”

Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

Photo courtesy © BAC/Todd Buchanan 2015

Motivation to learn

After finishing their work, Peterson and other apprentices had to wait to find out who won until the BAC’s banquet later that night. A celebration of the union’s 150th anniversary, the event drew more than 1,000 people, who watched as BAC international officers, including President James Boland, called Peterson up to the stage to accept his award.

Peterson is the first apprentice from Local 1 to place in the international competition. In fact, he and two others who competed in Bowie – tiling apprentice Jeremy Joa and PCC apprentice Mike Barthel – were the first from Local 1 to advance beyond  regional competition.

Their accomplishments, Peterson said, reflect Local 1’s commitment to training and quality.

“People hire union because of the training we get,” Peterson said. “It’s not possible without guys like Sam or Robby (Luukkonen), my instructor – people you can look up to and who want to teach you. With guys like this, a training program and a company that’s willing to support it like CD Tile & Stone – you put those three things together and great things happen.”

Greenwood expects more great things from Local 1 apprentices when international competition resumes in four years, now that Peterson’s trophy is on display in the training center.

“It’s a tangible thing people can look at,” Greenwood said. “Knowing they’re going to be able to compete at some point gives these guys the motivation to learn and to be the best they can be.”

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With new facility, St. Paul Pipefitters double down on commitment to training

October 23, 2015 by
Pipe Trades officials on hand for Local 455’s open house include (L to R) Local 455 Business Representative Tony Poole, United Association International Representative Terry Urbanek, International Representative Greg Sayles, Local 455 Training Coordinator Bill Lombard, Local 455 Assistant Business Manager Tom Vail, Local 455 Business Manager Rick Magler and David Ybarra, president of the Minnesota State Pipe Trades.


Pipe Trades officials on hand for Local 455’s open house include (L to R) Local 455 Business Representative Tony Poole, United Association International Representative Terry Urbanek, International Representative Greg Sayles, Local 455 Training Coordinator Bill Lombard, Local 455 Assistant Business Manager Tom Vail, Local 455 Business Manager Rick Magler and David Ybarra, president of the Minnesota State Pipe Trades.

 

A tenant for 111 years, St. Paul Pipefitters Local 455 finally has a home of its own.

The union held an open house at its new facility at 1301 L’Orient Street in St. Paul yesterday, celebrating with apprentices, members, retirees, public officials and union leaders.

Local 455 acquired the property – a former fabricating shop – about a year ago. Renovations added more than 30,000 square feet to the existing, 64,000-square-foot structure, including a second story in the shop area.

The facility will unite Local 455’s many operations – its apprenticeship training center, dispatch offices, local offices and meeting hall – under one roof, and the Pipefitters Steamfitters Credit Union is on track to move into an adjacent building next year.

web.Pipefitters-openhouse1Local 455 had been renting office space from the Pipe Trades Services on Transfer Road. The union operated its apprenticeship training programs out of St. Paul College and, for the last two years, a satellite facility in Oakdale.

“We were bursting at the seams,” Local 455 Business Manager Rick Magler said. “The members stepped up to the plate and gave us more than we asked for so we could finish the project.”

The local will continue to partner with St. Paul College on some courses, but the new training facility features 62 welding booths, 12 additional fabrication booths and 24 classrooms with fully functional boiler, chiller, computer and electrical-control labs.

“The labs are right next door to the classrooms, so we can emulate the work being done in the field,” Local 455 Training Coordinator Bill Lombard said.

Lombard said it was important to the local, as the St. Paul Pipefitters, that the new facility be in the city limits, and he looks forward to showing it off to the public.

“They can see our commitment to training,” he said. “People are going to see we have a huge commitment to having the best facility with the best instructors, so that we continue to be the best trained pipefitters for the job.”

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Looking to ‘step up our game,’ Ironworkers open new training center in St. Paul

August 26, 2015 by
Local 512's two-story training frame was too tall for apprentices to use safely in the local's previous facility, training director Larry Gilbertson said.

Local 512’s two-story training frame was too tall for apprentices to use safely in the local’s previous facility, training director Larry Gilbertson said.

 

Calling it an investment critical to the union’s survival, Ironworkers Local 512 Business Manager Charlie Roberts cut the ribbon on a new $3.1 million apprenticeship training center in St. Paul yesterday.

A large crowd of journey-level, apprentice and retired Ironworkers attended the ceremony, which marked the completion of Local 512’s 18,000-square-foot facility on Pierce Butler Route, near Dale Avenue. Construction work began in January.

Larry Gilbertson, the local’s training director, said the state-of-the-art facility reflects the “commitment to training that Ironworkers Local 512 has always had, so that we’re putting out the hardest working, best trained workers.”

Ironworkers twice voted to approve a dues increase to finance the new training center.

“We built this on our own,” Roberts told members. “You can be proud of it. It’s the Ironworkers stuffing the bolts in the high iron who are responsible for this.”

Business Manager Charlie Roberts cuts the ribbon on Local 512’s new training center.
St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman congratulates Local 512 members on their investment in training.
Charlie Roberts announces he’s stepping aside as Local 512’s business manager. Barry Davies will take his place in the position.
Journey-level, apprentice and retired Ironworkers listen as training director Larry Gilbertson lists the benefits of the new facility.

The investment boosts the capacity of Local 512’s apprenticeship program, increasing the number of welding booths from 19 to 30, doubling the number of classrooms from four to eight and doubling the amount of shop space for hands-on training. The new building is tall enough to allow apprentices to make full use of a two-story training frame, and there’s a new courtyard for outdoor work and events.

“For the next 100 years we can train the best Ironworkers in the country because of this facility,” business agent Barry Davies said.

The new training center will be named after Roberts, who announced he is stepping aside as business manager, with Davies stepping in as his immediate replacement. Roberts said he’s confident the investment in training and education will provide Local 512 members with a competitive edge for years to come.

“We’re in a different environment. We’re surrounded by right-to-work states, with Michigan and Wisconsin being the latest,” Roberts said. “We have got to step up our game.”

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman attended the ceremony. He praised the union’s commitment to providing a pathway into middle-class careers.

“Our job as elected officials is to make sure we have work for you,” Coleman said, plugging efforts to build a pro-soccer stadium in St. Paul. “When we keep investing in our community and you keep investing in yourselves, that’s how we grow a community.”

Local 512 represents 1,343 journey-level Ironworkers, 403 apprentices and 278 probationary members working in Minnesota, North Dakota and 21 counties in western Wisconsin.

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With boost from WESA, training program puts women on path to apprenticeship

June 24, 2015 by
Analise Adams is among the first 18 women to complete Women Building MN, a pre-apprenticeship program supported by grant funds included in the Women’s Economic Security Act.

Analise Adams is among the first 18 women to complete Women Building MN, a pre-apprenticeship program supported by grant funds included in the Women’s Economic Security Act.

 

Analise Adams, a 22-year-old from Minneapolis, was working in a Linden Hills childcare center two months ago. When her aunt, a member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, told her about a free training opportunity for women considering careers in construction, Adams decided to take a chance.

She quit her childcare job and enrolled in the two-week course.

The risk paid off. Within two weeks of completing the training May 22, Adams had a job as a pre-apprentice electrician with Egan Construction. Working on the contractor’s road crew, Adams helps take down streetlights and pull wire from beneath street level.

“They said my shovel would become my new best friend, and it has,” Adams said during a break from working on a road-construction project around Snelling and University Avenues in St. Paul. “We’re doing a lot of digging.”

Not that she would trade digging for diapers.

“Childcare wasn’t paying the bills. It wasn’t a career. It wasn’t where I wanted to go in life,” Adams said. “This is something I can work for years and years, for life.”

That’s the idea behind Women Building MN, the new pre-apprenticeship program getting women like Adams on track to a middle-class career by way of the Building Trades’ registered apprenticeship programs.

Breaking the mold

Men traditionally have dominated the ranks of apprenticeship programs in Minnesota, and it remains so today. Just 654 of the state’s 9,661 registered apprentices are females, or about 7 percent. But the number of women in apprenticeship programs has doubled over the last 10 years. It’s a trend policymakers, construction firms and Building Trades unions want to continue – at a faster pace.

“There’s a need to diversify the industry,” Building MN Coordinator Vicki Sandberg said. “A lot of women still don’t even think of construction as a career choice.”

The challenge of attracting more women to Building Trades apprenticeships is about more than achieving diversity, though. Industry experts anticipate a shortage of skilled workers in the coming years, according to Jessica Looman, deputy commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry.

Apprenticeship programs took in fewer applicants after the economic downturn as work slowed and opportunities for paid, on-the-job training – the basis of apprenticeship – grew scarce. “Now that work is back, we’re realizing we didn’t bring in enough people to be ready to do the work on the journey level, and we need to make up for lost time,” Looman said.

A looming “retirement boom” makes the need to recruit new workers even more urgent. Most workers in the construction trades are between 48 and 58. “That means they’re going to be retiring anywhere between the next year and the next 20 years,” Looman said.

Making registered apprenticeship opportunities attractive to women, veterans and people of color is an essential step toward meeting contractors’ demand for skilled labor in the coming years. “The Trades are taking a huge leadership initiative, and they really should be applauded and congratulated for the hard work they’re doing in bringing apprenticeship to more people,” Looman said.

Adams says other members of her crew "do an amazing job of teaching as they go."

Adams says other members of her crew “do an amazing job of teaching as they go.”

Designed for women

Women Building MN is based on curriculum developed by Build MN, a two-week crash course and placement program developed by Twin Cities Building Trades unions and their contractors in 2004 to attract non-traditional applicants to their apprenticeship programs.

The Women’s Economic Security Act, passed by state lawmakers last year, provided grant funding for an offshoot focused on women. The training includes an introduction to several crafts, from pipefitting to electrical work. Participants visit training centers operated by local unions, where staff set up demonstrations and hands-on activities.

“With 18 women in the class, we would go into these training centers and overpower the whole thing,” Adams said. “It was just all women. They’re not used to that.”

The course also included seminars on working in male-dominated environments, the culture of the construction industry, the apprenticeship career model and so-called “soft skills” – what to wear, what tools to bring, how to stay safe and more.

Women Building MN will graduate three classes this summer, each with up to 24 women enrolled. And for the first time, Build MN will track graduates’ progress with a mentoring program coordinated by the Minnesota AFL-CIO and the U of M’s Labor Education Service, connecting apprentices with journey-level workers.

Jerome Balsimo, a program coordinator with the AFL-CIO, said having a mentor “helps you deal with some of the issues that come up on the job, things you can’t teach in those two weeks. You need someone who has been through those battles.”

The mentoring program is also supported with funds from the WESA grant, which put a premium on apprentice retention. “We know if we can get people to stay after their first year of registered apprenticeship, their success rate in completing is significantly higher,” Looman said. “People who stay for a second and third year are the people who are going to make a career of it, and we want to help them get through that second and third year.”

‘Who cares if it’s hard?’

Already, the program is paying dividends for Adams, who is soaking up as much knowledge as she can before, she hopes, becoming an IBEW apprentice in the fall.

“I can’t do everything that they’re doing, but the guys on my crew do an amazing job of teaching as they go,” she said. “You have to be willing to go and get it and do the work. Put your foot in it. Who cares if it’s hard work? The whole point of a job is to work hard.

“Yeah, I’m going to have to get down in the mud, and I’m going to have to shovel. I’m going to have to do all of the work the guys are doing. It’s not any different. It’s just I’m a chick, and I’m doing it.”

Filed Under: Organizing, Politics Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Labor federation looks to put union members on ‘Path to Power’

January 28, 2015 by
Lynn Barton, a child care provider and AFSCME member from Alexandria, joined in a workshop at the Path to Power training.

Lynn Barton, a child care provider and AFSCME member from Alexandria, joined in a workshop at the Path to Power training.

Lynn Barten stood up in a conference room Sunday morning in St. Paul and gave a stump speech for a campaign she isn’t running – not yet, anyway – before a roomful of people who couldn’t vote for her anyway.

Barten, an AFSCME member from Alexandria, was one of more than 70 people who enrolled in the Minnesota AFL-CIO’s Path to Power training, a two-day boot camp in the most basic skills necessary to run an effective campaign for public office – skills like messaging, fundraising, networking and, yes, writing a stump speech.

“There are all these things like messaging, how you present yourself, how you sell your campaign,” Barten said. “It’s campaign basics, but had I thought of it before? Probably not.

“If it weren’t for an event like this, I’d just be doing everything on Google, searching for how to write a stump speech.”

The best advocates

When union members like Barten win election to public office, they make the best advocates for working families. That’s the idea behind the new Path to Power initiative, introduced by the Minnesota AFL-CIO last year.

[Click here to check out details regarding the next Path to Power training, April 25-26 in Little Canada.]

In many ways, program coordinator Bill Emory said, Path to Power is a response to the proliferation of attacks on the middle class. Corporate-backed lobbying groups like ALEC have turned state capitols into battlegrounds for workers’ rights, and billionaires like Michael Bloomberg are using personal fortunes to push their agendas on an increasingly local level.

“We need more people at all levels of government who actually know what it’s like to balance a checkbook on a middle-class paycheck, know what kind of impact unions have on building a stronger, more fair economy and know how important it is that our public dollars are spent well,” Emory said.

The Minnesota AFL-CIO, the state’s largest labor federation, hopes Path to Power will create a “pipeline” of leaders capable of standing up for the labor movement and its values. The state federation teamed with the national AFL-CIO to develop curriculum for the training.

“We want to make sure that union members have the best preparation possible before they run for office,” Emory said.

Path to Power trainings took union members through the steps of running for public office.

Path to Power trainings took union members through the steps of running for public office.

Everyone welcome

Participation in the training was not restricted to union members. Ira Jourdain, a losing candidate for school board in Minneapolis last year, enrolled in the training to increase his familiarity with unions, how they operate and how their issues relate to campaigns like his.

“It was an eye-opening experience,” he said. “I had so many people, even after the election, who were part of a union tell me to run again. Being here today, I’m learning more about making connections with unions and other groups sooner in the campaign.”

Building confidence

Emory said there appears to be a strong appetite for Path to Power candidate trainings among union members and the progressive community. Registration for the first training more than doubled expectations, and already 15 people have signed up for a second training April 25-26.

“I hope that participants will come away feeling confident that they can build a team of committed volunteers, communicate a strong message that includes a focus on economic justice, raise money, talk to voters and do all those things they’ll need to do to run for office successfully,” Emory said.

Barten, who is eyeing a run for Minnesota House of Representatives, said the training moved her one step closer to taking the plunge.

“I was so excited to be here today,” Barten said. “Putting these tools in my toolbox gives me a little more confidence that I really can do this. Maybe it’s not that tough.”

Filed Under: Politics, Union Events Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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