Table of Contents

Letter from AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney

Introduction

Work and Today's Youth

Unions and School-to-Work

Questions and Answers

Alternate Funding Sources

Online Resources

Bibliography

• Recruiting employers and unions to participate;
• Taking unions into the classroom;
• Identifying and training mentors;
• Promoting career exploration and awareness;
• Preparing youth for appenticeship:
• Expanding opportunities for work-based learning;
• Providing interships; and
• Supporting professional development for teachers.

What do unions achieve by participating in local school-to-work partnerships?

There are many objectives that can be met when unions participate in local school-to-work partnerships and activities:

• We can reinforce the importance of education—including going to college—to all students by demonstrating the specific skills and knowledge required by various occupations and industries.
• We can raise academic achievement by developing new work-related approaches and curricula that appeal to students who are not served well by traditional methods.
• We can introduce, recruit, and/or prepare youth for our registered apprenticeship programs.
• We can show how working for an employer with a collective bargaining agreement can provide tuition and other education and training benefits
  as an alternative way to finance a college education.
• We can help youth understand and recognize anti-worker stereotypes.
• We can help students learn about workers’ rights as well as responsibilities.
• We can make certain that student learning is always at the center of any STW activity.

The following section describes how specific unions have supported school-to-work in their community.

Recruiting Employers and Unions to Participate

Many state AFL-CIO federations and local councils have been essential to initiating school-to-work efforts in their communities. They often led the effort to involve private sector employers as well as unions in new STW partnerships.

Leaders of the Illinois AFL-CIO used a survey about planning and developing a statewide Education-to-Careers system to generate interest and suggestions. The state AFL-CIO used the information to assist local unions in working with employers and local STW partnerships to advocate STW program development and mentoring activities led by unions and their members. A supplemental questionnaire identified important labor market information, as well as potential mentors, job shadowing and work experience possibilities, training programs and labor representatives for local STW partnerships.

The New Hampshire AFL-CIO established a STW Labor Outreach Program aimed at integrating unions, union members, and unionized employers into School-to-Work activities throughout the state. In addition to speakers for career day activities, the program hosted a New Hampshire labor history seminar and several workshops for teachers, scholars, and union members.

The Washington State Labor Council and the Association of Washington Business established a Business/Labor Alliance for School-to-Work. Together they published Getting Involved in School-to-Work: A Guide for Washington’s Business & Labor Communities.

Taking Unions into the Classroom

Unions and union history are very important for all children to learn about. There are many opportunities for unions and union members to be involved in the classroom.

Teach from a Worker’s Point of View

The School-to-Work Opportunities Act calls for providing students with “strong experience in and understanding of all aspects of the industry.”

This concept, which is also included in other federal laws (such as the federal Perkins Act on vocational and technical education), gives schools the basis for inviting union representatives into the classroom to help youth learn about workplace issues from the worker’s point of view. At a minimum, this means providing:

• Information about labor history

• Basic information about worker rights

• Information and case studies in labor-management relations

• Information about health, safety, and environmental issues.

The National Survey of Local STW Partnerships found that secondary schools integrating “all aspects of the industry” into academic courses increased from 36 percent in 1996 to 43 percent in 1999.

Economics Education

Several states support the teaching of economics in high schools. Union members can serve as speakers and other resources in the classroom. For more information, contact the National Council on Economic Education at www.ncee.net.

Groundhog Job Shadow Day

Representatives of participating unions as well as employers often conduct classroom activities to prepare students before they shadow workers in their jobs every February 2nd. For more information, contact Groundhog Shadow Day at www.jobshadow.org.

Examples of Unions in the Classroom:

The Rochester Labor Council partnered with several other labor organizations to form the Rochester Education Alliance of Labor (REAL). REAL’s vision was to help students understand the world of work, to help teachers become informed about the jobs of other workers, and to prepare members of Council affiliates to assist teachers and students in teaching and learning about work. REAL produced an occupational safety and health curriculum module for high school students, work-related exercises for pre-K to 8th grade students, and professional development activities for teachers, including examining their own work as an occupation with requirements and rewards.

In Alabama, PACE Local Union 3-562 worked with Ciba Specialty Chemicals to develop a tech prep program tailored to a new job classification of process technician. The company and union met to review and revise existing national skill standards, then brought together representatives from other local chemical plants, school districts, and community colleges.

The Training and Upgrading Fund negotiated by Philadelphia Hospital and Health Care District 1199 (AFSCME) and local area hospitals served as the basis for establishing the Philadelphia Health Academy. Health-care partners helped develop the classroom curriculum and worked with teachers to establish workplace visits that reinforced school-based learning.

The Decatur (IL) Building and Construction Trades Council developed a 2-year curriculum for a Construction Skilled Trades Program for high school juniors and seniors. The curriculum, which addressed health and safety, labor history, regulatory bodies, and math and blueprint reading, enabled students to explore and pursue career interests within the construction trades.

Promoting Career Exploration and Awareness

Many local AFL-CIO affiliates helped young people learn about various careers by organizing classroom visits and field trips in which union members talked about what they do and the education they needed for their jobs.

In Maryland, the Metropolitan Baltimore Council of AFL-CIO unions concentrated on educating students and teachers about opportunities in the manufacturing industries and machining occupations.

As part of Groundhog Job Shadow Day, the Metropolitan Washington (DC) Council of the AFL-CIO took students to the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts where they shadowed union members employed as
musicians, stagehands, cafeteria workers, and ticket-takers.

The International Association of Machinists (through IAM CARES) operated the Skyward Bound Initiative, a summer project in Seattle in which 25 high school students earned graduation credits and wages as they built a light airplane at Boeing Field. The teens spent six weeks, eight hours a day, in the project, splitting their time between classroom study and building the plane. Retired IAM members from Boeing tutored the students in science and math as well as in tool use, measurement and blueprint reading. The youth also learned about the IAM/Boeing Apprenticeship Program and careers in manufacturing and aerospace.

The AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Department developed Construct the Future, aimed at middle school students. The program consists of four web-based modules available on the department’s website (www.bctd.org) which introduces students to the construction industry and career opportunities through union apprenticeships.

The Cincinnati Labor Council’s “construction camp” introduced high school students, teachers, and counselors to the construction world and to the application requirements for apprenticeships programs in 15 trades.

In Iowa, AFSCME Local 1868 was part of a STW partnership that operated a summer camp for 4th and 5th graders where students learned about carpentry, plumbing, electricity, and operating heavy equipment. Other students studied the work of sheet metal workers, ironworkers, insulation and asbestos workers, and electrical lineworkers.

Pierce County Labor Council in Tacoma, Washington provided teachers, counselors, and administrators with extensive career information through its Pathways to Apprenticeship program. As part of that initiative, joint labor/management representatives met with K-12 educators to discuss issues of access and qualifications for various apprenticeships.

Also in Washington, the Laborers-AGC Education and Training Fund and the Spokane Public Schools operated a one-week overnight camp for 25 students and 7 teachers from local middle and high schools. The program provided 18 hours of classroom instruction, 18 hours of on-site, hands-on work experience and four hours of individualized, independent study. Students received academic credit for completion. The course promoted career awareness in the construction industry and an understanding of the academic qualifications for apprenticeship. The Fund has also published a Construction Craft Laborer School-to-Work Program Technical Assistance Guide.

The West Central Illinois Building Trades Council in Peoria, IL, launched the annual Construction Industry Career Expo, in 1998 as a partnership of union building trades, contractors, business, labor-management apprenticeship programs and educators. During the two-day event, groups of 8th graders, as well as school staff and parents, rotated among the 10 craft booths trying their hand at laying bricks, hammering nails, wiring light fixtures and operating a backhoe/loader. Students from local colleges served as guides for the groups. The Expo has become an annual event, was expanded to include 7th graders and has been replicated by eleven other building trades councils throughout Illinois.

Identifying and Training Mentors for Youth

Mentoring programs proved to be a popular undertaking within the labor movement. State federations in Pennsylvania, Alabama, and Indiana, and central bodies in Des Moines, Iowa; Lane County, Oregon; and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, established programs to identify and train mentors to work with young people, in the classroom, and at the workplace. The Pennsylvania state federation published A Union Members Guide to Workplace Mentoring to help locals interested in developing mentoring programs.

Preparing Youth for Apprenticeship

These programs took career awareness and exploration activities further, aligning high school curriculum and courses to apprenticeship selection criteria and on-the-job requirements, as well as helping students and
teachers become familiar with the industry.

The Carpenters Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee Fund for Southern California oversees an apprenticeship program at a Riverside high school. The partnership created a career academy, or school within a school, for students interested in the construction industry. A team of teachers uses real-world construction applications in the classroom and journey-level workers and apprenticeship instructors participate as
mentors, in-class guest speakers, curriculum developers and guides as students visit local construction sites. Students who complete the program receive priority entrance and registration status for apprenticeship programs.

In 1992, the State of New Jersey and the New Jersey AFL-CIO established a Youth Transition to Work program prior to the STW Act. In 1998, six local and district union bodies received 5-year grants for apprenticeship and apprenticeship preparatory training programs.

Communications Workers of America Local 1031 developed the CWA Office Work/Computer Applications Youth Apprenticeship Program to establish registered Computer Support Specialist and Computer Applications Specialist apprenticeship positions. The programs offer high school students counseling, training, specialist certificates, and job placement with state colleges and public libraries whose workers are represented by CWA.

Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Local 54 and six of the largest casinos in Atlantic City operate a Culinary Arts Apprenticeship Program that works with high schools to align curricula and courses with the apprenticeship selection criteria and on-the-job requirements. The program trains young people for careers in the food service industry, with many students qualifying for union jobs at the casino hotels after graduation. Students are paired with union mentors and receive a union-led orientation. The project also runs summertime “culinary camps” for students and has negotiated a registered cook’s apprenticeship in Atlantic City.

IBEW Local 351 developed a two-year apprenticeship preparatory training program in participating high schools. In addition to aligning curriculums, the project created an apprentice mentoring system at its apprenticeship-training center.

The Northern NJ District of Iron Workers, IBEW Local 164, and the NJ Capital District and Southern Regional Councils of Carpenters operate a Youth Transition to Work Program. The unions commissioned Working Union: A Guide for New Workers to use in their pre-apprenticeship recruitment and training efforts. The booklet, an introduction to unions and the job market, presents apprenticeship as a financially
feasible way to get a post-secondary education and a good-paying job.

Expanding Opportunities for Work-based Learning

Several established labor-management partnerships have expanded to include school systems and to provide young people with curricula that tie their academic and work-based learning together, while giving them opportunities to apply that learning.

The Toledo (OH) Electrical Joint Apprenticeship Training Council operates a program for high school seniors interested in becoming electricians. Students alternate school and workweeks, working full-time for a week for a local contractor during their senior year. Students must pass Ohio’s proficiency tests, and participants can obtain advanced college credit for work-based experience as a result of the agreements negotiated
with area colleges. These credits may be used toward completion of an associate’s degree.

In Genesee County, Michigan, GM and UAW Local 659 are part of a cooperative effort to prepare high school students for a career in the skilled trades. The Manufacturing Technology Partnership is a two-year program during which young people complete the academic classes needed for graduation, undertake a modular vocational skills training program, and work in laboratories to learn how their new skills relate to the technology of the manufacturing process. At the plant, UAW mentors directly supervise the students, who develop portfolios of their learning. At the end of the program, students take the UAW/GM Apprenticeship test. This program was selected as a demonstration project for the U.S. Department of Labor and has been replicated in another GM plant as well as in 13 small manufacturing sites.

The Lansing Area Manufacturing Partnership (LAMP) is a six-year pilot STW initiative operated by the UAW, GM, and the Ingham Intermediate School District. Designed for high school seniors, the LAMP curriculum combines classroom instruction with work-based learning experiences within GM facilities. Following a 40-hour summer program, students attend LAMP classes two and half hours a day for the entire school year, working in teams to complete authentic “worksite situations.” Students also identify, research, and explore job interests, create a career plan and career portfolio, and identify a post-secondary pathway for further education or training. At the end of the program, students may take the GM New Hire Assessment, the UAW/GM Apprenticeship Test, or pursue further education. Union members are very involved, participating as advisors for each of the worksite situations; as job shadow hosts, mentors, and technical instructors; and as coaches and evaluators.

The Job Skills Partnership Program is a program of Southern California Edison (SCE), Utility Workers Local 246, IBEW Local 47 and 16 schools in California, Nevada, and Arizona. The union negotiated with SCE to create a joint workplace-based learning program for high school juniors and seniors at risk of dropping out of school. Begun in 1990, the program provides a year of rotation through different parts of the company. Students attend school in the morning and work at an SCE site in the afternoon where they receive an hourly wage and are paired with a mentor. They change mentors every six weeks as they rotate through the different areas of the company learning welding, electrical wiring, and the use of hand tools and computers. The students are treated as regular workers and have the same on-the-job protections and rights as union members. SCE provides the financing for the program and two SCE employees—one representing the unions and one management—coordinate the program on a day-to-day basis.

Providing Internships for Youth

IBEW and Verizon in New Hampshire and Massachusetts developed the School-to-Work on the High Road project, which builds on an 8-week paid summer internship for high school students at various unionized Verizon worksites in New England. The program includes classroom visitations, job shadowing, worksite tours, and other pre- and post-internship school-related activities. The project is developing a manual to help other telecommunications unions and companies replicate this model.

A union and management collaborative in Boston provide a STW program that includes work-based learning opportunities in the newspaper/publication industry. Students participating in the program are able to compete for summer internships at The Boston Globe. The Massachusetts AFL-CIO serves as the communication link for the collaborative that includes the newspaper, an umbrella organization of all Globe unions, the Boston Workforce Investment Board, and Brighton High School.

Helping Teachers Develop Professionally

The Wisconsin State AFL-CIO developed an innovative program to introduce teachers to potential occupations for their students. Through the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, the state federation works with the unions and employers of 40 metalworking firms to hold a series of Take-the-Teacher-to-Work days, involving 300 Milwaukee Public School teachers, apprentices, and co-op students. The effort aims to bring several hundred young people into manufacturing training programs in the next few years.

The Metropolitan Washington (DC) Council connected teachers with HERE Local 25 and Iron Workers Local 5 so they could learn more about construction and hotel and restaurant work as well as collective bargaining and the role of unions in those industries.

During summer 2000, the West Central Illinois Building Trades Council in Peoria (IL) worked with union construction firms and the Peoria Educational Region for Employment and Career Training program to involve 23 teachers in a five-day Union Construction Industry Educator Job Shadow program. The teachers visited apprenticeship schools, toured job sites and met with union and management personnel as they learned about apprenticeship requirements and careers in the industry.

What can you do?

There are many ways unions and union members can help young people learn about work and help them successfully transition from student-to-worker. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Work for an existing School-to-Work Program

Find out what STW programs already exist in your area and volunteer for one. There are many ways to get involved, you can serve on an advisory board, mentor a student, speak at a career fair or organize a job shadow day. There are lots of other ways to get involved—some big and some small. The important thing is that we all do what we can to help our children become responsible and successful adults.

Create a School-to-Work Program

By participating in a local school-to-work partnership advisory board, you may have the opportunity to design a school-to-work program that incorporates the best ideas and principles.

It is helpful to remember that STW concentrates on linking two places where learning can occur—the school and the workplace—and structuring and reinforcing the learning at each.

Recommendations from the AFT

The American Federation of Teachers has seven recommendations for teachers to develop successful school-to-work programs. They are helpful for everyone involved in school-to-work programs to keep in mind. The
recommendations are summarized below. Pay particular attention to recommendations two and six.

1. Provide all students with a strong academic foundation prior to high school. This means setting clear, rigorous academic standards and making sure students meet those standards from the earliest grades on.
2. Expose all secondary students to rigorous academic coursework in all core subjects. The primary goals of a high school’s school to career program should be to help all students master challenging academic material.
3. Use effective and engaging teaching methods. Students learn in different ways—some by reading and listening, some by working out their ideas with their peers and some by actually applying what they learn in a real-world context. Applied learning techniques should be a part of instruction but it should not be the only methodology.
4. Provide career exposure to improve academic performance and to prepare students for life after high school. The more that students believe their courses prepare them for life after graduation, the more likely they are to be motivated to work hard and do well in their classes. This involves giving them information about what their academic, training and work options are after graduation and what the requirements are for each option. It also requires high school courses and programs that actually provide students with the knowledge and skills they need. Effective STW systems provide quality career exposure, career-oriented programs and courses and work-based experiences.
5. Create an incentive for students to study and achieve: Make the high school diploma count. Students should not receive a diploma if they have not reached clearly defined, rigorous academic standards. Several states are designing systems of standards and exams that will lead to differentiated diplomas in high school. Colleges and employers should link college entry and employment to student achievement.
6. Provide quality professional development for teachers. This involves an on-going, coordinated effort that deepens educators’ subject matter knowledge, expands their repertoire of teaching strategies, allows time for collaboration between academic and vocational teachers, offers paid summer internships for teachers with local businesses and is a priority for the school, district, or regional education entity.
7. Use student achievement data to regularly evaluate progress. If schools are committed to making long-term changes, they need to be able to demonstrate that their new programs are working. School officials also need reliable information to help them make improvements and adjustments along the way.

For more information on AFT’s recommendations see Reaching the Next Step: How School to Career Can Help Students Reach High Academic Standards and Prepare for Good Jobs.

Encourage Your Unions and Unionized Employers to Participate

Unions and unionized employers are often among the leaders in our communities, offering better pay, benefits, and training to workers because of our union contracts. Encourage these employers to offer job shadowing, field trip tours, and teacher internships. Unions and employers may also want to be involved with developing curriculum or integrating skill standards into existing vocational courses.

Take a One-on-One Approach

If you cannot find an organized school-to-work program to participate in take a one-on-one approach. You will not have to look very far to find young people in need of support and guidance.

• Try talking with and listening to the young people at your workplace.
• Contact an elementary school or high school about mentoring a student.
• Spend a day being “job-shadowed.”
• Chaperon or host a field trip to a worksite or union hall.
• Volunteer at a local Boys and Girls Club or other after school program.
• Take your own child to work with you and introduce him or her to life after graduation.

Some Tools to Get You Started…

On the next few pages are a few tools you can use to begin to make a positive difference in the life of a young person. We offer you some tips for talking with students, some sample questionnaires to help with speakers’ bureau volunteers and job shadowing tasks, and a question-and-answer sheet that will help with some common questions from young people who are facing their first jobs.

What to Do When You Talk with Students

Ask students about their own work experience: what do they like and dislike about their jobs? Listening to their issues can help you identify unique as well as shared issues with adult workers in similar or different occupations.

• Use familiar items to help students identify with union and worker themes. A fast food or retail job application can be a good tool to demonstrate some key points about contracts. Pointing out the “employment at-will” provisions found in most job applications can lead to a discussion about the overall employment relationship: what should workers and employers expect from one another?
• Describe your work and the skills and training needed for the job and how best to prepare for it.
• Be creative in your thinking. Consider creating simple visual aids to underscore your message and to help students visualize themselves in the work experience.
• If you are going to speak in a more formal setting, try having students submit note cards with their questions or concerns. This technique helps them to raise the questions without risking the embarrassment of speaking in front of a large group.
• Use the Answers to Questions Teens Have Asked About the Workplace, as a springboard for discussion. That sheet may help students ask you other pertinent questions that may be troubling them.
• Focus on the benefits of being involved in a union. Make sure you answer the question, “What is in it for me?”
• Do not forget the younger kids in elementary schools—many are also interested in jobs and the world of work.