Updates Capital District WORKER Center

Several congregations are recognizing the LABOR in Labor Day by learning about the Capital District Worker Center. Curious? Click here for a bulletin insert you could offer to your pastor, rabbi or imam. The 2007 Labor in the Pulpits program, sponsored locally by the Labor-Religion Coalition, features the Capital District Worker Center.

Building Skills Program welcomes third class
The largest ever class of Building Skills/ Bridges students began the series of learning sessions on August 7, 2007!

The innovative Building Skills Project, a program of the Capital District Worker Center, connects union apprenticeship trainers (and other volunteer presenters) with a group of hardworking Albany residents who need careers rather than low-wage jobs. Nineteen local residents graduated with the first class on June 20, 2006.

In addition to workshops on math, reading and test preparation using examples related to the building trades, the 12-session program built a fabric of community support that continues after graduation. “We have faith in you” was the message conveyed by Worker Center volunteers and by the congregations and community organizations that recruited candidates for the program. Local unions sent their apprenticeship coordinators to classes to orient the students to their building trades apprenticeship programs.

The project is a partnership that benefits all participants. For urban congregations already committed to workforce development, the program builds awareness about pathways to careers in construction, careers offering respect, decent pay and pride in work well done. For construction trades unions, the project is a vehicle for recruiting candidates who will be successful into apprenticeship programs, especially women and people of color who are under-represented. (The project is overseen by an Advisory Committee, set up by the Greater Capital Region Building and Construction Trades Council.) Public agencies such as One Stop/ Career Central find that the program reaches inner city youth who haven’t been aware of One Stop services. In the long-term, the program strengthens ties among organized labor, religious bodies and community support organizations whose work for economic justice is enhanced by collaboration.

“Building Skills” is modeled on the Building Bridges Project in Chicago where clergy and leaders from the building trades have been collaborating for over five years. Building Bridges has two objectives: increasing the community’s knowledge of and access to building trades apprenticeship programs and encouraging local construction projects to use union labor that guarantees prevailing wages, family benefits and safe working conditions.

Fred Pfeiffer who directed the program in his role at coordinator of the Capital District Worker Center, says, “The Project assists local workers by networking them with union apprenticeship programs and educating them to the prerequisites necessary to be accepted into an apprenticeship of their choice. In addition we want to be there to help in the interview process and to help overcome challenges such as transportation.”

The Worker Center was founded in 2004 through the initiative of the New York State Labor-Religion Coalition and a start-up grant from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development.

Stronger Interfaith Worker Justice, AFL-CIO alliance to advance Worker Center mission

An Albany Times Union article featuring CDWC coordinator Gene Rodriguez was published Dec. 13, 2006. Click here to read "Labor pact is a boon for regional center" by Alan Wechsler.
For the AFL-CIO release, click here.