Initiatives Strive to Retain Good Manufacturing Jobs

In the U.S., manufacturing has long figured as a pillar of economic strength with effects that spread far beyond the sector itself. Reports from the National Association of Manufacturing (NAM) show that two thirds of our research and development capacity are concentrated in manufacturing, and that each dollar’s worth of manufactured goods creates an additional $1.43 of economic activity in other sectors, twice the $.71 multiplier for output in services. In addition, manufacturing workers earn relatively high wages, averaging $16.70 an hour in October, 2005.

Despite this importance to our overall economy, manufacturing has been allowed—and some would say encouraged—to shrink during the past 50 years, relative to other economic sectors. Only about 11 percent of the labor force now works in manufacturing, down from well over 30 percent 50 years ago. Because manufacturing has historically been one of the better- paid economic sectors, its decline has important consequences for all working families. This year, as the country struggles to recover from a recession in which roughly 2.8 million manufacturing jobs were lost, the resulting income drop will be keenly felt, not only by the directly affected workers and their families, but also by the communities where they live.

Nevertheless, we still have a sizable number of better-than-average jobs in manufacturing. To preserve and increase them, many unions are engaged in efforts to contribute to the competitiveness of their manufacturing employers. The Working for America Institute, with support from the U.S. Department of Labor, the Sloan Foundation and the Manufacturing Skills Standards Council, is helping to analyze and promote the most promising examples of these innovative efforts.

One effective strategy used by manufacturing unions and employers to maintain jobs is to ensure that qualified workers are available when and where demand is high.

Meeting Demand for Skilled Workers in Aerospace

The Community Learning Center Aerospace Industry Training Partnership Program (CLC-AITP) is a multi-employer, multi-union project administered by the local AFL-CIO Central Labor Council that works to reduce shortages of qualified workers in the aerospace industries in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas region. Since 2001, the CLC-AITP has helped its union employer partners and their parts-suppliers— many of whom have fewer than 500 employees—by providing com-mon, cost-effective employee recruiting, screening and training services. The program has also helped over 1000 laid off workers in the Dallas-Fort Worth area secure family-sustaining jobs. The CLC-AITP uses a virtual factory laboratory and union mentors to offer dislocated workers an industry-led curriculum that reflects actual employer needs for aircraft frame assembly skills. These features contribute to the high marks given the program and its graduates. Over 90 percent of trainees completing the training found jobs, and the program shows an 89 percent retention rate for those graduates who obtained jobs over four years. And the jobs are family- sustaining: the average weekly wage in the aerospace industry in Texas last year was $1,447. The program has been so successful that in 2004, the AITP added an incumbent worker skills upgrading component to provide instruction in the use of new technologies, materials and methods.

Insuring a Pipeline of Qualified Manufacturing Workers

A 2005 survey of U.S. manufacturing employers found that more than 80% of respondents said that they had a serious problem finding qualified candidates for the highly technical world of modern manufacturing.

Many firms are finding it difficult to replace retirees because younger people shy away from industry, fearing its continuing decline. The Teamsters, Sikorsky Helicopter in Stratford Connecticut, the Connecticut Central Labor Council and area high schools decided to do something about that and, in 2003, designed the School to Work Mentoring program. The program introduces high school students to a unionized manufacturing plant over a six-week paid summer internship. Using union mentors, the program trains young workers in growth manufacturing jobs, while showing them the rights and responsibilities provided by collective bargaining agreements. Since the program’s inception four years ago, enrollment has virtually doubled each year, although numbers are still comparatively small. Sikorsky has also expanded its hiring out of the program, placing a growing number of eligible interns in skilled jobs with family- sustaining wages at graduation every year.

Promoting Industry-Recognized, Portable High Performance Skills

To weather the volatility of today’s labor market—especially in manufacturing— workers need transferable skills that help them move more easily between employers. Manufacturing employers need workers with strong skills in the techniques of high performance production. The Manufacturing Skills Standards Council (MSSC) promotes skill standards that meet both of these needs. The MSSC is a joint effort of business, unions, education and community-based groups that sets worker-friendly, industry-validated standards for high-performance production. The standards have broad applicability. In Connersville, Indiana, for example, a partnership of the International Union of Electrical Workers-Communications Workers of America (Local 84919 IUE-CWA) and Visteon Systems adopted them as part of the “Knowledge is Power” program. When trainees complete this curriculum, which includes instruction in general production skills as well as in the specific skills needed by Visteon, they receive a certificate that documents both their transferable manufacturing proficiencies and their company- specific credentials. They may also receive college credits if they choose to.

The MSSC certification includes assessments in manufacturing processes and production, quality assurance, maintenance, and health, safety and environmental assurance. The system not only gives workers a credential that is nationally recognized but also helps unions push employers for the higher-performance workplaces that are necessary to keep manufacturing jobs here at home (see page 2a).

Conclusion

Initiatives like the ones at CLC-AITP, Sikorsky and Visteon are just three recent examples of union-supported training innovations that support good, family-sustaining manufacturing jobs.

Training initiatives alone, of course, will not preserve the nation’s important manufacturing base. But they do show that given the will, it is possible to make progress preserving manufacturing jobs even in a highly competitive globalized economy. In 2006, the Working for America Institute will explore these issues further at a special forum on Workforce Strategies in Advanced Manufacturing. The forum will focus on cooperative labor-management innovations designed to enhance competitiveness. For more information on this initiative and on high road partnerships in manufacturing, see our website at www.workingforamerica.org or contact us at info@workingforamerica.org.