Skilled workers in demand

MONTGOMERY - Alabama's organized labor unions and non-union contractor associations are joining forces to attract the next generation of skilled craft employees to replace an aging work force.

Unions and contractors support bills in the 2009 legislative session that would create and self-finance the Alabama Construction Workforce Development Institute to be housed within the existing 21st Century Development Authority.

Jay Reed, president of Associated Builders and Contractors of Alabama, said the institute would conduct a campaign to explain the construction craft trades and to improve its image to young men and women beginning as early as junior high school.

The craft trades of welders, electricians, pipe fitters, steelworkers, plumbers and insulators, to name a few, have been good jobs until the recent recession. The average skilled tradesman is in his or her 40s or 50s and that's the driving force behind the unusual cooperation between unions and non-union employers.

"This has been a perfect fit for the (contractors and unions) working on this project and we're raising a lot of eyebrows working together," said Leroy Nicholson, director of the Alabama AFL-CIO Labor Institute for Training. "You have to change the way of thinking and work together if you're going to survive."

Reed said the age of the average craft worker is 53, and within a generation, the ranks of the skilled, non-residential construction trades could be depleted without new blood.

"For us to go hand in hand with the union is certainly unusual, but this is bigger than either group, and working together we can both be effective," Reed said. "We see this as non-controversial and getting people to look at construction and once they get here it's up to the employer to keep them in the sector."

The Alabama Department of Industrial Relations notes that by 2016 there will be 268,810 jobs, up from 225,720 in 2006, in non-residential construction, but those numbers would have to be viewed in relation to the current economic recession that is slowing most employment.

"The construction trade is growing faster than employment overall," said Jim Henry, information director of the department of industrial relations's labor market information service.

Keith Huntley is a welder by training but he is now the business manager for the Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 760 in Muscle Shoals. The local operates a training school that attracts men and women who become apprentices.

He said in Alabama and other similar non-union states, apprentice skilled craft workers can earn about $11 an hour during training.

The pay can increase to $25 an hour on jobs in Alabama once an apprentice becomes a journeyman after about five years, he said.

Out-of-state jobs where contractors use union labor can pay as much as $42 an hour, he said.

"There's a shortage of welders across the country right now," Huntley said. "We're trying to step up our recruitment of young welders."

He said the union school is attracting young people but it may not be enough to overcome industry losses as older craft workers retire.

"We get about 100 apprentices," Huntley said.

Bob Woods, manager of special projects and special legislative affairs at Alabama Power Co., is interim executive director of the proposed Alabama Construction Workforce Development Institute. He said his company needs skilled craft workers.

"Our concern is the lack of people entering into the craft trades in the energy sector to build power plants and emission control devices," he said.

The bills creating the Alabama Construction Workforce Development Institute by Sen. Wendell Mitchell, D-Luverne, and co-sponsored by a bipartisan number of senators, are on the Senate calendar and could be considered this week.

One bill would create the training institute and the other would authorize a fee of $90 per $100,000 of construction job payroll paid by the employer to support a public relations campaign to identify and attract young men and women. The goal is to create a fund of $1.75 million.

Joe Perkins, a public relations executive, said surveys show that men and women ages 18 to 24, their parents, and guidance counselors generally know little if anything about the construction trades.

"The bottom line on the research is they had no idea what the construction trade is," Perkins said. "These construction jobs for young people, they're going to make as much as someone their same age or more with a four-year college degree."

Skilled trades build non-residential projects such as nuclear plants, government and private office buildings and industrial plants.

Bill Caton is director of workforce development for the Associated Builders and Contractors of Alabama that has about 1,100 members.

"We need a major makeover in the worst way," Caton said. "People do not know about our industry and don't realize the opportunities in it. We're not getting the flow of talent we need to sustain ourselves."

Craft jobs can be in the cold and the heat. And they usually are not all that glamorous.

"That's people's views of it, dirty jobs," said Caton said. "A lot of these jobs aren't, and you can make $30 an hour. We got to tell people what their career opportunities are and we have done a terrible job on that."

Examples of contractor craft jobs are expansions at Bryant-Denny Stadium and the new, $90 million Auburn basketball arena.

"Somebody has to build that plant to specification and someone has to build the infrastructure to attract them in the first place," Caton said.

Dana Beyerle is the Montgomery bureau chief for the New York Times Regional Media Group. He can be reached at (334) 264-6605 or dtb12345@aol.com.