Preliminary Results

Preliminary results reported by the partnerships (see Appendix) are encouraging. Although some are young enough to be able to report only on numbers served, rather than long-term results of services, examples such as these indicate that support and expansion of partnership activity is warranted. Also needed is continued study of the evolution of existing partnerships and the development of new ones.

• At the Culinary Union Training Center in Las Vegas, which began in 1989, more than 2,500 workers a year were completing the program by 1997. The center says its placement rates and wages paid to graduates are higher than those of other private social service and training organizations, and costs to taxpayers and clients lower.
• By 1999, more than 7,000 workers had gone through the Hospital League's job-to-job training. More than 1,100 workers were placed in new jobs.
• More than 1,000 labor and management representatives from 70 worksites and 25 local unions have attended Labor-Management Council for Economic Renewal programs.
• The Garment Industry Development Corp. has trained thousands of workers, generated more than $35 million in new sales and opened new international markets for employers.
• In Milwaukee, more than 400 central city residents have been placed in industrial jobs since the summer of 1997. Their average starting wage, according to the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, has exceeded $10 an hour, plus health care, pension, tuition reimbursement and other benefits. Almost 70 percent have retained their employment. Successful participants have increased their average annual earnings from $9,000 to $23,000 in their first year on the job.
• The Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership's co-presidents, representing business and labor, headed a state Task Force on the Future of Technical Education and Training that prompted a $20 million training fund in the state's biennial budget to help low-income workers achieve upward mobility, a $13 million scholarship fund to help youths attend local technical colleges and a $7 million expansion of school-to-work programs for disadvantaged students. Workplace activity has resulted in $21 million in private investments in training.
• The Steel Valley Authority's Early Warning Network's job retention efforts have been widely recognized, noted in the Center for Community Change's June 1998 report, "Saving and Creating New Jobs," and cited as a model by the U.S. Department of Labor. Over the past decade, the Steel Valley Authority has saved more than 7,500 jobs.
• For Fiscal Year 1997-1998, the Consortium for Worker Education served nearly 30,000 students, of whom half were women, three-fourths were people of color and one-fourth had not completed high school.
• The Worker Center, AFL-CIO, rapid response program served 61 employers and more than 7,000 displaced workers in 1999.
• Working Partnerships USA has recruited 400 participants in its new temporary staffing service and negotiated an affordable, portable health benefit plan with Kaiser Permanente. All job placements have been made at $10 per hour or more. The partnership also has launched a code of conduct campaign to restructure the nature of temporary hiring services in Silicon Valley.