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Partnership Highlight:  Secretary Perez Celebrates National Apprenticeship Week in Cleveland

Posted November 2015

US Secretary of Labor Tom Perez was in Cleveland on November 2 to kick off the National Apprenticeship Week and learn more about broad new apprenticeship initiatives in America’s public transportation industry.  The Secretary was joined by Carolyn Flowers, Senior Advisor of the Federal Transit Administration.  The event was hosted by Joe Calabrese, CEO of the Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) and Ronald Jackson, Sr., President of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 268.

The Secretary’s tour at RTA’s Rail Shop highlighted the 30-month rail car apprenticeship program sponsored by RTA and Local 268’s Joint Apprenticeship Council - the program will soon be submitted for registration with the Ohio State Apprenticeship Council. At Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C), Secretary Perez toured the Unified Technologies Center that provides classroom training for future RTA operations and maintenance workers. He was then joined by a dozen panelists including the Executive Director of the Transportation Learning Center, Jack Clark, for a roundtable discussion of ways to promote apprenticeship in transit and other US sectors.

In his opening remarks, Secretary Perez spoke to the importance of apprenticeship in addressing the skill needs of the transportation workforce: “The American population is aging. When you look at the data, the workforce in the transit industry is actually older. [GCRTA] and so many others have immediate needs. That’s why .... the Transportation Learning Center, a national nonprofit has just received one of our DOL grants to build and expand apprenticeship. They are working together with transit systems that are having the identical conversation - we’ve got workforce needs; how do we work with our union partners; how do we work with our business partners; how do we build a workforce of tomorrow. And that’s exactly what you are doing - you are using that apprenticeship onramp to the skills superhighway to do just that.”

Cleveland is one of 32 transit systems around the country that are embracing standards-based training and apprenticeship as the best way to meet their needs for quality workforce skills.  Sponsored by major national transportation employer and labor organizations, the nonprofit Transportation Learning Center is working with dozens of transit agencies to develop national training standards and then implement standards-based apprenticeship systems in key frontline occupations, including bus and rail car mechanics, transit elevator-escalator technicians, signals technicians and transit bus operators. 

“In this industry it is very difficult to hire someone with experience, so developing our own in-house training programs is critical,” said Joe Calabrese, CEO of GCRTA as well as Board Secretary of the Transportation Learning Center, during the Rail Shop tour.  “We work with the local high schools, with Tri-C to get the basics, and with the Transportation Learning Center that brings union and management together for these programs. You really have to have union backing and support to make these programs happen. The development of training programs is based on national standards, and the cost of that can be shared with dozens of transit systems, operating the same or similar vehicles. So it’s really a partnership.”

“These industry-education partnerships also help us improve diversity in our workforce,” said ATU’s Ronald Jackson.”  “These partnerships will expand employment opportunities for disadvantaged populations, veterans and women,” Jackson said.

Jack Clark emphasized the advantages in cost-effectiveness in these new apprenticeship programs.  “When the industry develops new standards-based training, 20 agencies can be sharing the cost, and grants from US DOT’s Federal Transit Administration provide matching dollars to agency contributions.  So each agency is only paying 1/40th of the total cost,” Clark said.  “It’s like the greatest sale ever: Buy one, get 39 free.”  Common apprenticeship training frameworks provide a common language across the industry

Clark emphasized the range of apprenticeship work being undertaken by the Center and its industry partners from management and labor.  These include 32 transit agencies and commuter railroads in 18 states helping develop at least 44 standards-based and apprenticeship training programs and 41 partnerships with career and technical education high schools and community and technical colleges (see the attached list of participating locations and programs).

National sponsors of this national standards-based apprenticeship program include the Amalgamated Transit Union, the American Public Transit Association, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen and the Community Transportation Association of America.