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BTN News Executive-Secretary Where is the Craft Worker Labor Shortage?
BTN News Executive-Secretary Where is the Craft Worker Labor Shortage?
| Where is the Craft Worker Labor Shortage? |
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| By Richard Slawson, Executive-Secretary | |
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These discussions aren’t new. Over the last 20 years there has been the same calls for “somebody” to do something about the expected Craft Worker Labor Shortage. These comments are mainly coming from the very people who have done more to create a shortage of experienced, trained Craft Workers than anyone—The Construction Owner — Big Business. Companies like Chevron, Mobil, Texaco, Exxon, Dow Chemical, Union Oil, and a thousand others have decided their business model for future construction and maintenance projects should only be awarded to the lowest of the low bidders. That means non-union construction companies like Brown & Root, Fluor-Daniels, Rust, B&K, and even some Union companies like Bechtel Group, Foster-Wheeler and hundreds of others that construct projects with non-union subsidiaries, or totally non-union, are awarded projects when they train not one new craftsperson. These construction companies continually tell the construction owners that they have training programs and are pushing for formal Apprenticeship Program approval with both the federal government and the various states that have apprenticeship laws. However, what they don’t say is that those efforts are a disastrous failure because they don’t spend the money that is necessary to effectively train, nor do they provide any career continuity for workers they hire. Look at their record of failure and you can see that these construction companies are not interested in training anyone that they believe will go to work for their competitors. Their failed training initiatives prove that they are only providing training on an “as needed” basis. The sad part of this situation is that their actions have flooded the construction industry with half-trained, half-assed workers. If this wasn’t true, no construction owner would be concerned about a shortage of skilled, experienced Craft workers. An example of the short-shrift that even owners provide to Craft workers training is the Gulf Coast Workforce Development Initiative the CURT is funding. They are bragging about16 CURT member companies donating $3 million to this Craft training program, which is apparently an attempt to substitute an untried plan for existing Labor/Management Training that already exists. $450,000,000 a year is invested by Labor/Management Training Programs in the Union Construction industry. Yet, our investment seems to be almost ignored by both Big Business and non-union contractors. For over 70 years, Craft Unions, Union members and Union Contractors have developed the training that has provided the skilled, trained, experienced craftsmen and women to our industry. We have built the homes, schools, roads, bridges, commercial buildings, fire stations, oil refineries and other industrial facilites our country and its businesses needed and there in no reason to believe that CURT’s under-funded and alternatives to Apprenticeship would be a workable substitute. The Craft International Union Presidents and the Building & Construction Trades Department do a great job in telling our story on Training and Apprenticeship. However, with business’s cost cutting and use of contractors who never have participated in training you have to wonder if they listen. I think that every Craft Union Training Program should send CURT’s members information on Labor/Management Apprenticeship Programs. If they see it in black and white maybe they will believe it. CURT’s website is ww.curt.org |
We are constantly hearing the Labor Shortage Drumbeat from
owners, builders and contractors that there is a current and looming
shortage of skilled, experienced craft workers throughout the United
States. Along with these discussions that are being held at
construction industry conferences, conventions, trade shows and
seminars, there is the hand wringing about the lack of training that is
available for the youth of the nation who might be attracted to a
career in the construction industry.
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