History is repeating itself with the closing of Triangle Tech and Pittsburgh Technical Institute. It was 20 years ago that the city closed Connelly Trade school located on Bedford Avenue in the Hill District. Thousands of high school students attended trade school there while attending high school.
It left a giant void in vocational training and probably the biggest reason that we are experiencing a labor shortage in the construction industry today. Competition for today’s youth has never been so intense with all major industries recruiting high school students as early as tenth grade.
A viable option for young workers
But with the closing of the two long time vocational training centers, there is still a viable option for todays next generation of workers.
The Pittsburgh Building Trades is an organization of multiple crafts that represent 33 different unions. Many of these building trades unions have multi-million-dollar training centers throughout Western Pennsylvania. They offer four to five year apprenticeships that pay the apprentices while they are being trained. They receive healthcare, retirement benefits and the best vocational training in the world and at no cost to the student.
With today’s high cost of a college education, the prospect of a job that is financially rewarding should be attractive to not only students but for parents as well. Plumbers, steamfitters, electricians, and most other trades will earn more money than graduating college students over their careers.
More than just construction
The Building Trades offer many more opportunities than just construction. Project managers, estimators, and other office positions are available after they obtain some experience in the field.
The strong relationships that the unions have with their signatory contractors allow them to jointly administrate the training of their members as well as pay for their education. They are no burden to the taxpayers for training. They are overseen by the Department of Labor.
It is a template for success that has worked for over a hundred years in western Pennsylvania and throughout the United States and Canada.
The Building Trades Unions can increase their apprenticeship classes to accommodate the closing of those two institutions, but they need jobs to place the apprentices. One way is to increase the use of PLA’s (project labor agreements) on new developments in our region.
More opportunities
There is a fallacy among politicians and many others that prevailing wages and project labor agreements drive the cost of construction when, in fact, it has been proven that they are safer, more productive and on time and under budget when compared to their competitors. The more jobs awarded to the Building Trades Unions, the more opportunities for the next generation of workers.
As the doors close at Triangle Tech and Pittsburgh Technical Institute, their closing is not the end of all vocational training in the region. It points to a best kept secret that has been here all along: the Pittsburgh Building Trades and the opportunities they provide for young people to learn
Thomas G. Bigley is the director of plumbing for the United Association of Plumbers and Pipefitters of the United States and Canada. For more information on the building trade programs, go to the Builders Guild of Western Pennsylvania.
First Published: June 20, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
