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Winning
and running union-sponsored training and job placement programs
are some of the relatively new ways that today's unions are working
to help individual workers and their families “make it”
today.
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It is the commitment that drives unions to bargain hard for their members' wages and working conditions where workers have won the right to bargain and to advocate strongly and effectively where they have not won that right. It is that commitment which drives unions to lobby hard for legislation and regulation, which advances the needs of all working people in both the workplace and in the society at large. And it is that commitment that leads unions to support political leaders who fight for working people's needs and to oppose those who do not. Winning and running union-sponsored training and job placement programs are some of the relatively new ways that today's unions are working to help individual workers and their families "make it" today. Craft
(AFL) unions have long used apprenticeship and other employment-training
systems as an integral tool in helping individual workers succeed;
today's craft unions are expanding access to those time-honored
and time-proven apprenticeship and training programs in order
to offer their benefits to more workers at the same time that
they are improving their ability to raise standards in their industries
and in their communities.
Industrially organized (CIO) unions in many different sectors of the economy have for the last couple of decades fought for and won employer-funded education and training programs (both job-- and non-job--related) to aid in their members' individual advancement aspirations; today's industrial and service and public sector unions are expanding into pre-employment recruitment and training programs again to build increase their ability to influence standards for their employers, their industrial sectors and their communities. Central labor
councils and state federations are also getting more involved
in helping working families succeed in this economy. Branching
out from dislocated worker programs, they are now actively engaged
in other ways of preparing and connecting their community residents
to good jobs.
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