Organized Labor

Drive to Pleasanton and you’ll find a busy Carpenters apprenticeship program operating at one of the union’s four Training Committee Centers in the region. Some 3,000 apprentices are enrolled in classes in Northern California, with 1,500 of them studying at the Pleasanton center. The balance of the students are enrolled in the other three centers in Fresno, Fairfield and Morgan Hill.

The program offers apprenticeship training and journey level re-training for a variety of crafts: carpenters, millwrights, pile drivers, scaffold erectors, acoustical installers, insulators, hardwood floor layers, and shinglers.

The program has changed over the years since Mary Lieser, Northern California District Coordinator, was a student there in 1985. When she walked into her first class, she was the only woman there, and there were few people of color. “We now have women in almost every class, and a live mix of people of every color,” she notes. She concedes that the number of women in the building trades is not as high as many activists had hoped, but, she points out, “Our women in the program have a higher rate of success than the guys, statistically speaking.”

“It’s an excellent program,” Lieser continues, pointing to her own life as an example. Coming from a fine arts background, Lieser was looking for a career where she could make money and not work in an office. And, as is the case for many in the trade, there was something about the smell and feel of wood that called to her, “I didn’t come from a construction background, and I learned enough to be successful in the trade.”

Instructor Oscar Tarango came to the program a different way. After 32 years in the field as a carpenter, he started teaching two years ago. “I’ve always enjoyed mentoring people and working with apprentices,” he says. “Instead of being a cop, I let them know their success is vital to the trade. I try to teach them about the critical path technique that superintendents use. At the beginning of the day we set a goal: where we want to be at the end of the day, what our tasks are going to be, and who is going to do what. By the end of the day, they see how productive they can be just by being organized.”

Tarango prepares the students to tear down structures they built in the morning as part of a bridge building class. “The tear down is one of the most dangerous tasks,” he explains. “If someone is going to get hurt, this is where it happens, rather than putting the thing together. We are always talking safety. I can’t imagine if one of these guys had to go home and tell their families they got hurt at school. We do everything we can to avoid that.”

Instructor Bob McAndrews began working as a carpenter in 1968. “We used rocks to hammer in nails back then,” he jokes. He began teaching carpentry in 1986, and he still loves it. “Showing somebody how to make a better living is very satisfying. This is a hope for the middle class. I have a lot of friends with advanced degrees, and they don’t do as well as these guys do with four years of training.”

Apprentices start at $20 per hour. High wages are part of the draw, but less than half the apprentices who start finish the five-year program. The problem is not just learning the skills. “Attitude outweighs aptitude in this trade,” McAndrews explains. The guy who shows up every day to work, rain or shine, is much more likely to succeed than someone who has more skills but heads for Tahoe in the middle of a job if the snow is good.

Not being reliable is the most common complaint Lieser hears from employers about apprentices. For that reason, the center provides life skills classes emphasizing the need for sound work ethics and an understanding of how to budget money and time. The center is also developing a pre-apprenticeship program to screen applicants and provide basic skills to start them off on the right track. More information about the carpenters’ training center can be found at www.ctcnc.org.