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The Concrete Cieling

Can minorities break into the skilled trades?

Without question, construction unions have placed work-force development near the top of their priority list as the baby-boom generation heads toward retirement.

Labor groups in Milwaukee are focused not just on enlarging the pool of workers but also on recruiting into the skilled trades nontraditional employees such as blacks and Hispanics. Yet today, minorities account for fewer than a third of the workers in the Milwaukee County construction industry, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Construction unions have established programs to connect these potential workers to the training they need to become apprentices, yet minority representation remains small. And those minorities who are in the skilled trades tend to be in fields that require fewer technical skills and pay less.

To explore this topic, Wisconsin Builder's Jeremy Harrell sat down with Jerry Ann Hamilton, executive director of the Milwaukee NAACP chapter; John Topp, executive director of the Construction-Labor Management Council of Southeast Wisconsin; and Ruth Zubrensky, a 10-year member of the city of Milwaukee's Equal Rights Commission.

An edited version of their discussion appears in the following pages.

Wisconsin Builder: Mayor Tom Barrett is fond of saying that Milwaukee is no longer a majority city of any one particular color. Yet the construction industry — and I don't think I'm going to shock anybody — is an overwhelmingly white industry. How serious are the unions about addressing that?

Topp: My experience is that there's been tremendous progress made in seeking out and making real valid attempts to make sure the work force is diverse. I think the programs that we've started to initiate and the talk that we have in the leadership of [the CLMC] is that we have a recognizable duty to be good citizens for the sake of our community. The [Building Industry Group/Skilled Trades Employment Program] is our flagship, and while not perfect, it's certainly well on its way to doing a lot of good for our community and getting our work force diversified.

… Depending upon the trade, the whys and the wherefores and the history, I think that's history. I don't know why that is. I can only look forward and try to do what we can in the future to make sure we have the proper diversity and provide opportunity to get into these programs.

WB: Do you think it's possible for trades in the Milwaukee area to be more reflective of the population? Is that a desirable goal?

Hamilton: There should be a greater percentage of minorities in the trades. There's a deficit in skilled laborers in the construction business. The problem arises when all those unskilled people have to work with minority contractors. That leaves the minority contractors having to train and having to pay the same salaries as the people who hire the skilled laborers. Minority contractors are seeking people to employ, and certainly the people are available. How we can get more people trained and hired is a systemic problem.

WB: Is it that it's so expensive to train workers that minority contractors may not have the wherewithal to do it, that they don't have the work?

Topp: I think it's important that you get a handle on where we are on all of this. The minority contractors that are [signatory to unions] participate in the training programs just like everybody else. Where it gets more difficult, and admittedly so, is in what people perceive as the higher-skilled trades — the electricians, the steamfitters, the plumbers. The whys and the wherefores as to why those numbers are down, I don't know.

Hamilton: It seems to me we need another level of training if we have that many applicants who do not reach the eligibility requirements for the programs we have set up. People need jobs. That's what we're looking for. Training people means jobs. If we don't have the training for the people who are going to have jobs, then we're going to end up nowhere. If the people who need the training are not eligible for the program, you have to go down to get them up to that level.

WB: Programs like BIG STEP are about taking people who have rawer skills and preparing them for the apprenticeship program. Is the gap perhaps not so much in the education you provide but in getting them into the programs?

Topp: The training that goes on is all-dependent on the marketplace. That's why we want to encourage spending, and we want to encourage construction and infrastructure work. What's happening right now with the Marquette Interchange is a huge influence for us. The [state Department of Transportation's training] program has graduated 70 people right now, and I think 40 of those people have jobs.

Zubrensky: But it's all at the laborers' level. It's not getting into the skilled trades. It's pouring concrete, it's doing things that are laborers. … I hate to be negative, but I've looked at this situation for many years. Somebody pointed out to me the other day that African-Americans of standing do pass the pre-apprenticeship exam, but they're not at the top of the list. The contractors, financially, want the very best out there on the job. What kind of arguments can you make with contractors to go down that list to take on minorities?

Topp: My personal view is that we've got an obligation to our community, and I think that there's a sense here that if you're any part of a community interest group, there are things people do to give back to society because you have to start asking yourself the question, 'What kind of world do we want to live in?' I don't want to live in a world where people are struggling and starving in my own back yard.

Zubrensky: I know, you're very well meaning. I understand.

Topp: Right, but what the groups can do, trying to get through prior prejudices and to take a step forward, is start having more community thinking going on with decision-making power bases in this country, whether it's national, regional or local. Now they're saying 'You know, we have a problem here with trying to diversify our work force.' People are not saying, 'I'm not going to talk about that.' Twenty years ago, maybe they did. In my experience with the industry, when I talk to the craftspeople who are working the jobs, they don't care about color, they don't care about gender. What they care about is whether the person next to them can do the job. There's no barrier out there.

Hamilton: But there is. If there were not barriers, we would say there's not a great difference between the races, and I don't think that's possible.

WB: You were talking about attitudes on job sites, that it doesn't matter whether you're black, white, yellow, man or woman, as long as you can do the job well. Why is there still such a discrepancy then? Is it a matter of a slow evolution toward a more diverse work force?

Topp: I think it is. I don't think we're going to be able to cure the ills of the past with an instantaneous cure. It's going to take time, just in the mere fact that an apprenticeship in the electrical field is five years. … And, sometimes, I'm telling you, it takes four, five, six years to even get a look-see no matter what race or gender you are. Electri-cians, for instance, have 550 applicants who want to get into the trades. How many of those are African-American or Latino? I don't know. I know they took 32, five of which were African-American.

WB: You'd mentioned the percentage of minorities in, say, the laborers is higher than in the steamfitters, electricians, the carpenters and other longer-indentured trades.

Is there any possible explanation, and what are unions trying to do to correct that?

Topp: I think there's less skills involved with the laborers. That's not to cut them short or say their training is not important; it's very important. Because of the less technical skills that are necessary for that type of work, they are able to lower some requirements. They do not require a high-school education. I think that's unfortunate, but, again, if they specifically define a job that can be done without a high-school education, we don't want to not give a person an opportunity to make a living. … A lot of times people enter the laborers' program, too, [because] it's a quicker buck. You can come in, you can go through some fundamental training, and you start out at 80 percent of what a full-fledged laborer earns. I think the Laborers union overall has really stepped up to the plate by really doing what they can to employ people who need and want jobs. I think that what's important there, too, is that they are also encouraging people. If you want to be in some other profession, having the experience of being on a construction site is one of the areas that the apprenticeship committees look at for putting people into their programs.

Zubrensky: But they get paid lower wages if they go back for more skills.

Topp: That's a problem. What happens is you're making 80 percent, then you're going to drop down to 40 percent to get into the apprenticeship program. So maybe that's one of the areas we work on.

Zubrensky: They could start him in the second year of an apprenticeship.

WB: Essentially so they're not penalized for upgrading their skills.

Topp: But I can tell you, historically, that's the way it's always been done.

Hamilton: The complaints we get here from people who have tried to apply are not because they don't have the motivation to be trained. These people lack the opportunity to get admission to the programs.

Topp: The ranking system is there. There's no question about it. There are great strides being made to try to give consideration.

Zubrensky: In civil service, taking the top three [of an applicant pool] was knocked out in a court decision because it was discriminatory.

Topp: I guess the key here is that it's better to work together to try to find a solution rather than just butt heads.

Hamilton: Oh, we plan to work together. We have no choice but to work together. We'd just like to speed it up a little bit.

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