Many Struggle to Find Work After $3.7 Million Jobs Program
Friday, May 25, 2012
There’s no shortage of praise for the Providence-based ‘green’ construction skills training program funded with $3.72 million in Recovery Act money, but some say there’s a shortage of jobs for the more than 1,100 trainees – some existing union workers, others unemployed low-income “urban residents.”
“Our people are trained and ready to rock. Now we need the jobs.” Scott Duhamel wears a number of labor hats including Secretary-Treasurer of the RI Building and Construction Trades Council.
“We have great numbers, great stories,” said Andrew L. Cortés, director of Building Futures, a program of The Providence Plan.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTCortés is talking the RI Energy Training Partnership that Building Futures developed with its trade union partners; an initiative created to help the state’s construction industry respond to what he said is an “increasing demand for green construction services and renewable energy projects.”
The goals were to deliver pre-apprenticeship training that would put 100 unemployed “young, urban residents on a successful pathway into green construction careers” and, working with labor unions, incorporate certified “green-training” into existing apprenticeship curricula program of study to ensure that 600 registered apprentices receive green training and finally, upgrade the technical skills of 900 dislocated journey workers.
The green construction job training program was funded with a $3.72 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant Providence Plan applied for in 2009, when now U.S. Rep. David Cicilline was mayor of Providence. Attempts to reach Cicilline for comment were unsuccessful.
“When you hear that in Rhode Island they’re lacking skills, no, we’re not. We’re trained and we can meet the demands,” said Duhamel, who also represents the Union of Painters and Allied Trades. His union was one of eight that received $2 million of ARRA millions awarded to Building Futures.
According to the Pew Foundation and the U.S Department of Labor, construction trade ‘green’ jobs are considered a key element of so-called green economic activity, but those jobs represents less than 11 percent of all RI jobs. And the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that through 2018, green jobs in trade fields including electricians, masons, carpenters, iron workers and laborers will be in the double digits.
“But we have trained guys and girls sitting on the bench,” Duhamel said.
Trade Labor Unions Partners, Mostly Silent
There’s no shortage of upbeat stories of late where trainees, workers and graduates in hard hats pose with hammers, yet some trade union representatives were chagrin to talk with a reporter about their work in the program.
Nearly $2 million was “sub-awarded” to local unions (electricians, carpenters, plumbers, pipefitters, painters, iron workers, and laborers) as “partners” to train workers in areas including photovoltaics for electricians, wind turbine construction for ironworkers, green products for painters, and high performance glass for glaziers.
But while Building Futures program has reported quarterly to the federal government on its activities associated with the grant, the unions, as sub-awardees, are not by law required to file any reports, quarterly or otherwise, with the government detailing what precisely they have done with their hundreds of thousands in award monies.
At least one union’s representative said he was “just not interested in speaking (with a reporter) on any of this.” And others have either not returned calls for comment and data or, in the case of one, promised to provide information but failed to do so.
RI Carpenters Union business agent David Palmisciano did not return a call for comment but Bill Holmes, business manager and financial secretary did, he said, on Palmisciano’s behalf.
Holmes said a meeting was slated for last Friday to “wrap things up” with the grant training program and he would respond to questions following that meeting. He did not return a call last Friday or Monday despite initial promises to do so.
Duhamel said some unions didn’t fare as well as others he was “disappointed that not every trade got on board.”
“Some trades didn’t figure it out, didn’t get the programs in place real (well.) That’s disappointing, but we did. We utilized the grant well,” he said of the painters union. “Ours was a real success.”
Cortés said that the contracts with labor were “deliverable-based.”
“They show us the certificate and the documentation in triplicate, and then they get reimbursed. Bottom line they have to incur costs prior to being reimbursed,” Cortés said, so he was “comfortable” knowing the unions did their respective jobs training workers.
“We got our people trained in LEED’s-approved (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) best environmental construction practices,” Duhamel said. “Our industry is greening and we’re prepared.”
Duhamel explained that given trade union members pay for training, when there’s little work, there’s little coming in to cover those instruction costs.
“In the union trades, we pay lock stock and barrel for our training…30, 40, 50 cents out of every hour’s worth of pay. So when everyone is working, the coffers are full and we can cover training (costs), but when we have people on the bench, when no one is working, then we’re in dire straits,” Duhamel said.
“So with this grant, we really benefitted. We were able to train and get guys skills upgraded and do it green because that’s where our industry is going. There won’t be a building built that’s not going to be green, energy efficient.”
‘Ready to rock.’ Are there jobs?
“This is not a job generation (grant program),” Cortés said. “A lot of people would love that, including the federal government, but this was about training, it was never about the number of jobs created although jobs were created,” Cortés said.
People did end up as apprentices in trade unions that partnered with Building Futures. People like 27-year-old Ken Brown of Providence, who is now an apprentice in IBEW Local 99.
“I had shop class in middle school,” Brown recalled. “That was it with tools, really. I hadn’t done anything too hands-on before.” Brown, who had been slated to sign up for unemployment benefits just days before attending the Building Futures first ETP orientation, had experience in retail and office work but nothing remotely resembling construction trades work and he said he’d had little to no contact previously with ‘anything like green building and construction work.”
“But we learned a lot about green building; they (Building Futures) were pretty thorough with that,” he said, adding, “even the union is starting with green building” projects.
And then there’s Building Futures Energy Training Partnership graduate Annie-Laurie Commons. The 25-year-old originally from Portsmouth is now an apprentice tile setter in the Bricklayers union.
“The first thing everyone says is, ‘Wow, you’re a girl.’ Then they say, ‘Wow, you’re a good worker,’” a very upbeat Commons said about her role as the only female in her field. “Building Futures made it happen. Really, I tell everyone. They give you everything you need to do it yourself, ‘cause that’s it, you have to do this yourself, say you want it and do it.”
She wanted it.
Not everyone has been so lucky.
Ed Coker, 32, of Providence wants it too but he’s been out of work for six months. Coker completed the ETP program and soon after became an apprentice mason but, he said, “it got really slow,” and he soon found himself without a job to go to. Unemployed for six months now, Coker praised the Building Futures program but said he was frustrated with the lack of work.
“It’s gotta get better. I hope anyway,” he said.
The numbers…of dollars
According to federal tax returns filed by Providence Plan and financial data provided by Guide Star, the non-profit public database, for the fiscal year ending June 2010, Providence Plan had $7.9 million in revenues and $7.7 million in expenditures. Its highest paid employee, executive director Patrick McGuigan’s compensation was $175,000 in wages and benefits.
Under the stimulus grant, one of three awarded Providence Plan (one, for $1 million was awarded through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services for capacity building), sub-awards for trade union partners totaled $2 million.
A quasi-public agency, Providence Plan was created in 1993 as a city-state effort to “promote better collaboration” between government and the public and private sectors as well as leading academic communities to improve the economic and social well-being of Providence neighborhoods.
