{"id":532,"date":"2021-08-27T00:01:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-27T00:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/?p=532"},"modified":"2022-08-24T14:07:53","modified_gmt":"2022-08-24T14:07:53","slug":"looking-anew-at-labor-recruitment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/2021\/08\/27\/looking-anew-at-labor-recruitment\/","title":{"rendered":"Looking anew at labor recruitment"},"content":{"rendered":"

LOOKING ANEW AT LABOR RECRUITMENT<\/strong><\/span>
\nContractors, unions search beyond usual sources to fill workforce gap<\/span><\/h3>\n
\"Operating

Operating Engineers Local 701 training director Lonnie Land, right, instructs field representative Terry Casey how to operate the union’s new heavy equipment operation simulator.<\/p><\/div>\n

By CHUCK SLOTHOWER
\ncslothower@djcorprod.wpengine.com<\/a><\/p>\n

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701 was looking for apprentices. It found them at the rodeo.<\/p>\n

Local 701 was able to recruit a couple of apprentices at the Arlington Jackpot Rodeo, near the Washington border, in May with the help of a van wrapped in graphics. Now, business manager James \u201cJimbo\u201d Anderson is leading the union into a sponsorship of the Clackamas County Fair and Rodeo in late August in hopes of recruiting more youths.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe emphasis is apprenticeship \u2013 and great things are happening,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Unions and contractors are looking afresh at new ways to reach the next generation of workers to fill a persistent labor shortage in the construction industry.<\/p>\n

One Local 701 organizer is an amateur bull rider who has helped connect with the rodeo scene. It\u2019s also resulted in attracting the interest of some young women at a time when the industry is looking to diversify by gender as well as race.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was amazing was the farm girls that come up,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Apprenticeships are the lifeblood of building industry unions such as Local 701. Apprentices can graduate to become journeymen. If they stay in it, they can eventually retire at a relatively young age with a union pension.<\/p>\n

Local 701 had 63 active apprentices and nearly 3,700 members as of late July, Anderson said.<\/p>\n

The COVID-19 pandemic dealt the local chapter a number of curveballs. Yet the workforce has carried on largely unscathed. Two Local 701 members were hospitalized with COVID-19, but no union members and none of their family members died from the virus, Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Local 701 was part of a coalition that successfully lobbied Gov. Kate Brown last year to designate construction workers as essential. Construction sites hummed along while much of the rest of the economy shut down.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very proud of our members because they went to work,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n

Labor unions worked closely with contractors and the Associated General Contractors Oregon-Columbia chapter to keep construction going during the pandemic. Both labor and business interests successfully lobbied the governor to keep construction going as an essential business while other states, including Washington, idled jobsites.<\/p>\n

\"he

he Operating Engineers Local 701 building, 555 E. First St., Gladstone.<\/p><\/div>\n

Early on in the pandemic, AGC Oregon-Columbia pushed out safety and health guidelines, said Mike Salsgiver, the organization\u2019s executive director.
\n\u201cWe were among many business sectors that were not shut down,\u201d he said. \u201cWe were able to get guidelines implemented on the ground, and it came together pretty well.<\/p>\n

\u201cConstruction was seen as a model for how businesses should react to this.\u201d<\/p>\n

Overall, the construction industry continues to face a workforce shortage, Salsgiver said. \u201cBroadly, for construction, we are seeing a continued challenge in trying to find skilled people,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

AGC Oregon-Columbia is looking to community colleges to help fill the gap. The group also reaches out to K-12 educators to expose them to the construction industry during summer break. The goal is to inform educators that construction is a viable career path for youths who don\u2019t want to attend college, Salsgiver said.<\/p>\n

AGC Oregon-Columbia is also improving its communications materials, Salsgiver said, and has retooled its recruitment website at build-oregon.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 701 was looking for apprentices. It found them at the rodeo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":543,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}