As I write, I’m in my hotel room at a conference. A big conference. In a city far away from home. In the company of and counted amongst hundreds of labor leaders from across the country.
My name is Vinny Alu, and I am the Business Manager/Secretary Treasurer of General Building Laborers Local 66 of the mighty Laborers International Union of North America (LIUNA). We are an organization of 530,000 members throughout North America, working in construction and non-construction roles, contributing to our communities in countless ways. And the conference I am attending is the Annual LIUNA Leadership Conference, this year in Honolulu, Hawaii.
As is often the case with big organizational conferences like this, there are seminars, workshops, and conversations over lunch. At this year’s Leadership Conference, one topic has weaved together all of the great things we accomplished nationwide since last year—things like our mobilization to disaster relief situations and volunteerism, our partnership with government to modernize infrastructure, revolutionize our energy future and water management, and the political activism working with labor-management for the development of industry partners in Capitol and Management to partner with our trained workforce.
That one recurring topic is our LIUNA Apprenticeship programs within the Laborers Union and the incredible possibilities and potential value of this time-tested approach to workforce development. Throughout our North American network of 72 training funds, we are training the workforce of the future. From remote pipelines to offshore wind rigs, from tunnel projects to massive, beautiful new bridges, apprentices are earning as they learn next to the journeymen who will one day pass the torch to them to continue building into the future.
Apprenticeship candidates come from all walks of life at ages from 18 on up and are selected by committee to proceed with the program and begin a noble career in the building trades. As has been reiterated back to me time and time again, not all kids are going to go and succeed with a college career. I did not pursue a college degree but rather went to work with my hands. I eventually discovered the Local 66 apprenticeship and have built a skillset that has incredible value to me, my family, and my community. I continue on as a Local 66 instructor and love the mentorship aspect of preparing new workers for a busy industry.
On Long Island, we are always in need of a highly trained construction workforce, and I have committed to the vision of something that has begun to unfold in our public schools. Over the last couple of years, we at Local 66, in partnership with the Roosevelt School District, have built out, for the first time in New York State, a High School Pre-Apprenticeship program. At the end of last year’s school year, Roosevelt High School Instructor Steve Vargas had 34 students in grades 9-12 in a part classroom, part hands-on training program, preparing them for the option of a career in construction. This puts Roosevelt on the leading edge of workforce development, among the first school districts in the nation to take this big step.
And this is just the beginning. We are currently building high school programs in two other school districts and will be offering these career paths to more kids. My vision is for these programs to continue to grow and ready workers for our partner contractors to be successful, contributing members of a highly trained local crew. We here on Long Island can build anything, and as a labor leader, I feel obligated to prepare the next generations of laborers to succeed on and off the job. When workers can pay their bills and support their families, the entire community benefits. But when out-of-state, unqualified, and untrained crews come to the island and work on the jobs we historically built, the quality, safety, and ultimately our community wealth pay the price.
The future of workforce development is going to expand and root in our schools and honestly offer careers for our kids to realistically be able to afford to stay on the island and thus continue to build.