Effort continues to prep pipeline workforce

Published on July 7th, 2010

By MARGARET BAUMAN

Over 2,000 union apprentices scattered on jobs around Alaska this year are honing their skills in the building trades, acquiring the experience likely to offer them well paying jobs for years to come.

'Typically 85 percent of the registered apprentices (in the building trades) are in our programs,' said Vince Beltrami, president of the Alaska AFL-CIO.

'Every year when we decide how many to take in, we look at the construction forecast,' Beltrami said.

'Most of our contractors during the fall and winter are bidding for the next construction season. We might take in only 20 in one year (in a single union apprenticeship program) and 100 the next year. We want to take in enough people to meet the demand load for the job. And they (apprentices) have a five-year apprenticeship. We don't want to bring them in and then not have any work for them.'

Beltrami was speaking optimistically about the economy on July 1, in an interview on the state of Alaska's workforce development. 'Despite all the gnashing of teeth about how ACES (Alaska's Clear and Equitable Share program, which seeks to get the state a fair share of oil revenues) exploration is up, or at least steady on the North Slope,' he said. 'In addition, we have the big capital budgets, bigger than we've seen in a lot of years. If that continues to be the trend, most projections show we will be in good financial shape for the next few years.'

As Beltrami sees it, 'the more capital project money out there, the more likely we are to have a growing workforce ready to meet the demand of a (gas) pipeline a couple of years down the road,' he said. 'Our apprenticeship programs have the ability to expand or contract according to the workload out there.'

At the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development, meanwhile, efforts continue to create a workforce development system that branches into all levels of the public school system, technical schools and colleges, and apprenticeship programs.

The Alaska Workforce Investment Board, led by executive director Greg Cashen, provides policy oversight of state and federally funded job training and vocational education programs. Board members, who are engaged in business and industry, study employment trends and emerging occupations in an effort to customize training and prepare more Alaskans for good paying jobs.

The board has been working hard to help Alaskans understand the important connection between the world of education and world of work, the need to keep on learning while earning, to keep up with evolving technologies.

'Strong partnerships that support and coordinate activities between educators, employers and government are critical in the development of a qualified workforce that is adequate to meet Alaska's current and future economic demands,' the workforce notes on its website (http://labor.alaska.gov/awib).

Once work begins on the natural gas pipeline project, the short-term benefits will include 6,500 direct construction jobs and in the long term, create over 50,000 indirect jobs and establish oil and gas careers for Alaskans,' according to state Labor Department projections. 'The permitting, engineering, pre-construction and construction jobs will be

phased in over the next two to six years,' the agency states on its website.

At present, with the gas pipeline plan still uncertain, the Labor Department hopes to implement programs to get residents trained for other careers, including health fields and construction. 'The plans have been developed, but now we have to implement them,' said Jeff Selby, career and technical education coordinator for the agency.

Selby leads the state's effort to work with youth and adult residents, through the state's regional training centers, to make them aware of employment opportunities and how to get trained to get those jobs.

Options include the Alaska Technical Center, AVEC &emdash; Alaska's Institute of Technology, the Delta Career Advancement Center, Fairbanks Pipeline Training Center, Galena Interior Learning Academy, Ilisagvik College and North Slope Workforce Training Partners, the Northwest Alaska Career and Technical Center, Southwest Alaska Vocational and Education Center, Sitka Education Consortium, University of Alaska Workforce Programs and Yuut Elitnaurviat &emdash; People's Learning Center.

'We are expanding out into health care and other occupations where employment is more year-round and stable,' said John Hakala, the federal Labor Department's apprenticeship director for Alaska.

'It's on the job training,' said Hakala, who is working with the oil and gas, mining, construction and allied health industries to develop apprenticeship programs. 'We spend a lot of time talking with the employer,' he said. 'It's all based on an employer contacting us and saying he wants to develop and an apprentice program.'

To work with the registration agency for apprenticeships in Alaska, employers must have a legitimate business, be able to handle the company payroll and provide a job mentor for the apprenticeship, which may take from one to four years.

There are almost 950 recognized apprentice-able occupations in the national system, Hakala said. 'We utilize about 90 of them in Alaska.' Some of them are particularly useful in Alaska, like core driller apprenticeships.

And then there are others, like geothermal driller apprenticeships. Hakala said he is presently working with the Naknek Electric Association and the state to develop this one.

The state's growing effort notwithstanding, Beltrami said the unions' self-funded apprenticeship programs still lead the way.

'We spend over $10 million a year of our own money out of our wage package to make contributions to our training programs,' he said. 'and we've been training people in those (building) grades for 70 years in Alaska.'