The Teamsters / Sikorsky Career Pathways Union Mentoring Program represents a promising approach to solving a serious challenge facing both manufacturing employers and manufacturing unions – that of renewing the supply of skilled workers to fill the manufacturing jobs of today and tomorrow. This program – begun in 2002 and continuing to date – provides high school students with a positive introduction to manufacturing work under cost-effective conditions, thus increasing the supply of needed skilled workers to the company. The union, in turn, gains an opportunity to hand down its members’skills and knowledge; train young workers interested in in-demand manufacturing jobs; and keep the community’s employers competitive – while introducing tomorrow’s workforce to the rights and responsibilities available to them under collective bargaining agreements.

Based on a program piloted in the other five New England states by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), the program began under the auspices of the state’s Central Labor Councils’ Union Mentoring Project, with the enthusiastic support of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. Similar programs have been launched throughout the state of Connecticut by the Union Mentoring Project and collaborating union-employer partnerships at a number of unionized workplaces in both the public and private sector. These include Electric Boat (a division of General Dynamics); several public and private utilities; local housing authorities; woodworking and fabrication shops; and theatrical production companies. The union-led Union Mentoring Project actively promotes the IBEW model as a way to help unionized employers from a variety of industries and sectors who will be losing skilled workers to retirement in the next decade, while giving local schools a more effective way to introduce young people to high-skill, high-wage careers. Other Connecticut employers – and their unions – report similar success with their mentoring programs and have praised the role of the state’s labor federations in supporting their school-to-career efforts.
       
Click here for the program overview See the article at Working for America