The Alaska Contractor: Fall 2006

Trades
WOMEN in the
PROGRAM
Alaska Works Partnership’s award-winning Women in the Trades
Program supports women by offering construction apprenticeship
preparation, apprenticeship outreach and support services.
Construction apprenticeship preparation courses are specifi cally
designed to prepare women to be competitive applicants to the
Building Trades Apprenticeship programs.
The three-week program offers women the opportunity to explore
different construction trades such as carpentry, electrical, plumbing,
sheet metal, piledriving and ironwork. Women also prepare to apply for
apprenticeship through construction math, job readiness, certifi cates in
fi rst aid/CPR and occupational safety and physical conditioning.
Once accepted into a Construction Trades Apprenticeship program,
Alaska Works may be able to provide fi nancial support during the
fi rst year of classes and on-the-job training. Applicants may qualify for
assistance with lodging, per diem, ground transportation, child care,
airfare from rural areas, book and class fees, necessary work clothing,
necessary tools of the trade.
continued from page 43
Workforce isn’t keeping pace
Women are a largely untapped resource
in the effort to address national
labor shortages in the construction
trades, say a gathering crowd of industry
experts.
Vicki Schneibel, education director
for the Associated General Contractors
of Alaska, said the industry needs
a minimum of 20 percent of each year’s
high school graduating class to join the
trades.
“And that’s without a big project
like a gas pipeline,” she said. “There’s
plenty of room for women and no reason
why they can’t join the second-best
paying industry in our state.”
Starting wages in the construction
trades average $50,000 to $60,000 a
year, according to the Alaska Department
of Labor and Workforce Development.
Numbers published by the department
in September 2003 indicated that
2,690 women participated in Alaska’s
construction industry in 2001.
In the last fi ve years, the industry
has grown by an average rate of 5.7
percent a year, according to the department
of labor.
But Greg O’Claray, Commissioner
of Alaska’s Labor and Workforce Development
Department, said the number
of people entering the trades isn’t
keeping pace with industry growth and
retirements.
He said Alaska is already losing
about 1,000 trained craftworkers a year
to retirement.
“We need to train 2,000 workers
a year to replace them and keep pace
with the double-digit growth predicted
between now and 2012,”O’Claray said.
Alaska’s labor unions apprentice
programs have responded to the growing
demand by doubling and tripling
the capacity of their apprentice programs,
he said. About 2,000 apprentices
are part of the construction trade
unions’ training programs.
“They’re the other four-year degree,”
O’Claray said of the four-year
apprenticeships programs that lead to
the journey level.
“We’re changing the perception
that you are a second-class citizen
if you have a job where you get your
hands dirty.”
44 The Alaska CONTRACTOR Fall 2006