Structure

This study found that high road partnerships tend to be, at least at their start, either sectoral (focusing on a particular industry) or regional (concerned with a geographic region as a whole). Over time, though, these distinctions fade, and each type of partnership begins to build relationships and conduct activities characteristic of the other type.

Unions and groups of employers within an industry make up the core of a sectoral partnership. By reaching across an entire industry within a region, sectoral partnerships can have far greater impact than any single union, employer or community group. Often they begin by offering skill development services, then grow to help employers modernize facilities and harness technology.

Sectoral partnerships generally are structured in one of two ways:

• Unions and a group of employers in an industry negotiate employer contributions to a labor-management partnership fund, which typically has an equal number of union and employer representatives on its governing board. Examples include the Southern Nevada Carpenters Journeymen and Apprentice Training Program, the Graphic Arts Institute of Northern California and the service-sector training and upgrading funds created by HERE Local 2 in San Francisco and Local 226 in Las Vegas.
• Unions and management within an industry form a coalition, such as the Labor-Management Council for Economic Renewal in Detroit, the Garment Industry Development Corporation in New York, the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership and, in Massachusetts, the E-Team Machinists Training Program. Some of these labor-industry coalitions, lacking collectively bargained training funds, have tapped public school-to-work and welfare-to-work funds for training new and incumbent workers. Some have accessed public capital investment and financing programs to help them provide workplace modernization services. A number have formed nonprofit organizations and received foundation funding.

Regional partnerships, which operate across multiple industries, also can be grouped into two main types:

• Regional labor-community alliances, such as the South Bay (California) Labor Council's Working Partnerships USA and the Worker Center in Seattle. Based within their local labor councils, both groups reached across their regional economy to connect union leaders, community leaders and local government to foster training, placement and economic development initiatives. Labor-community alliances often attract funding from public agencies and private foundations.
• Regional labor market organizations, including western Pennsylvania's Steel Valley Authority and the Consortium for Worker Education in New York City. Regional labor market organizations can work across the entire regional economy or within a broad sector, such as manufacturing. They draw funding from state and local government, as well as unions and employers. A public economic development agency sponsored by unions and community groups, the Steel Valley Authority receives state and local government funds to preserve good industrial jobs through modernization, helping employers access capital, training workers and supporting continuity of ownership for at-risk small and medium-sized manufacturers. The Consortium for Worker Education brings together 40 unions in a multi-sector training program that serves the public and private sectors.

The differences that distinguish sectoral from regional partnerships can be seen most at their outset with the focus of their activities (see graphic right). In general, sectoral partnerships most often begin with collectively bargained funds, a primary and initial linkage with unions and employers, setting standards and engaging in practices to broaden the worker's voice in the workplace, an industry/workplace focus to their research, and training and education for incumbent workers related to technical and occupational needs of members and employers.

While the types of activity in counseling, placement, training design and delivery and the kind of training offered by the two partnership models are similar the regional model begins with a community emphasis. In general, regional partnerships tend to start with public and foundations funds, an emphasis coalition building to broaden the worker/community voice on the economy through public standards and representation on boards, building linkages between unions and the community, and regional economic research.

The High Road Partnership Report study found that as sectoral and regional partnerships developed, their characteristics began to converge and more came to operate with unions and businesses partnering to develop deep connections with regional organizations and with state and local government. They moved toward becoming both sectoral and regional, with roots in the union movement, the community and employers.

Among what began as sectoral partnerships, the Southern Nevada Carpenters Journeymen and Apprentice Training Program and HERE's Culinary Union Training Center in Las Vegas, for example, have developed close ties with the Interfaith Council for Worker Justice, immigrant advocacy groups, Latino organizations, civil rights groups, women's organizations and welfare-to-work government agencies. Similarly, the Garment Industry Development Corporation crafted relationships with Chinese and Latino membership groups and the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership connected with congregations and civil rights groups as part of the Milwaukee Jobs Initiative and the Campaign for a Sustainable Milwaukee. These partnerships have found that as they develop community ties, they attract greater interest from state and local government as well as foundations.

Regional partnerships, meanwhile, have built stronger ties to industries. The Worker Center in Seattle strengthened its connections with unions and employers in the shipbuilding and construction industries to address industry development and worker training, recruitment and placement. Responding to social inequality within the wealth of Silicon Valley, Working Partnerships USA created a workplace modernization and work redesign program that led to an innovative system for training and placing temporary office workers.