Blattner-Brunner's ad campaign for the ironworkers union.

By Anya Sostek
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Thirty years ago, coveted openings in the ironworkers union usually went to friends and family of established members.

The perception was that "you were in or you weren't, and you had to know somebody to get there," said Scott Malley, business manager for Iron Workers Local No. 3.

These days, however, union apprenticeships are there for the taking. Despite hourly wages that start at $15.50 and jump to $28.18 after completion of a three-year program -- and a history in the region that goes back more than a century -- the union can't find enough apprentices.

So the Iron Workers union is trying an approach more familiar to retailers than unions: To recruit fresh blood, it is selling the virtues of working in the industry through a high-profile marketing campaign that was created by Downtown agency Blattner Brunner and kicked off over Labor Day weekend. Fifteen billboards -- "We don't go to the office. We build it." -- have gone up throughout the region, from the Strip District to Armstrong County.

Radio and Internet advertising also are under way. Overall, the union is spending several hundred thousand dollars on the campaign, said Mr. Malley, who also serves as financial secretary and treasurer for Iron Workers Local No. 3, which covers Erie and State College as well as Pittsburgh.

"I haven't heard of this kind of direct advertising before," said Marick F. Masters, director of the Center on Conflict Resolution and Negotiations at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz School of Business. "But it's something that unions are increasingly looking to do, particularly in the construction industry, where they have a very hard time recruiting qualified people."

Iron Workers Local No. 3 has about 1,300 active members, said Mr. Malley, down from about 2,400 in 1982. But with planned construction on power plants, shopping centers and possible slot machine parlors, he expects those numbers to rise. "We see that growth coming again," he said. "The potential's there."

To supply construction sites with union workers, however, more ironworker apprentices are needed. Women as well as men are welcome, said Mr. Malley, if they have a high school diploma or G.E.D., a valid driver's license and their own vehicle. They also need to pass a drug test, physical exam and basic test of reading, writing and math abilities.

The three-year apprenticeship program includes 600 hours of classroom instruction, where workers learn skills such as welding and blueprint reading. A pension plan starts immediately, he said, and health care starts within the first two months.

Given the pay and benefits, why aren't workers flocking to these jobs?

Mr. Malley thinks some young people just don't know about the ironworkers, or think that you still have to know somebody to get the jobs. "There's plenty of people in the region, but we don't think people know about us," he said.

Another factor is the push by baby boomer parents for their children to continue their education beyond high school.

A few decades ago, many young people in the region chose between a job at the steel mills and a job in a building trades after they graduated from high school, said Bill Legetti, executive director of the Ironworker Employer Association, which represents builders who use union ironworkers. Now, he said, "everybody tends to go on to college."

Of course, the possibility of injury associated with ironwork is a deterrent, too. Sometimes called the "cowboys in the sky," ironworkers are known for walking steel tightropes and dangling off bridges -- potentially hazardous situations not cut out for the faint-hearted.

But the business is a lot safer than it used to be, Mr. Malley said. "It's not necessarily for the faint of heart, but the risk of a person falling has been all but eliminated," he said, pointing to workers wearing safety harnesses on the steel frame for a condominium undergoing construction on First Avenue.

But there are still accidents. In 2003, one ironworker was killed and two others were injured when a steel truss fell 70 feet to the ground during the construction of the new David L. Lawrence Convention Center.

"Yeah, it's a dangerous job," said Mr. Legetti, whose group is also helping to fund the campaign. "But there have been a lot of changes in [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] standards and safety standards that are there to protect the workers."

With other areas of the country booming in construction more than the Pittsburgh region, other ironworker union chapters are experiencing a worker shortage more acutely. That has the national ironworkers union, which was founded in Pittsburgh in 1896, closely monitoring this marketing campaign to see whether a fresh strategy can raise interest in an old industry.

The campaign is adding "glitz and glitter" to ironworkers, said Mr. Legetti. "It's no longer the industry that our fathers grew up in. It's different today."