As the country celebrated Labor Day Monday KSMU talked to regional leaders in labor, and we took a look at the Missouri Works Initiative. A program helping to introduce the building trades and organized labor to Missouri residents.
Austin Fox is Operations Manager for Missouri Works’ Construction Program and an instructor in Springfield. He says Missouri Works started in St. Louis under a different name in 2014, it expanded to Springfield in 2022.
It is a five-week program. Fox explained, “we go through kind of an orientation that first week and introduce people to the construction industry. We talk big picture when we talk about construction. So, we're talking about projects as well as how the economy affects construction and the industry as a whole.”
Training also includes financial literacy classes, labor history CPR and OSHA training.
Then, Fox said, “over the course of the next four weeks of the program, we meet with the individual trade unions.”
The program is free for attendees and receives funding from the state as well as the U.S. Department of Labor and the private sector, including the Missouri AFL-CIO.
Fox said that across the state they placed just over 100 participants in apprenticeships with trade unions in their last fiscal year.
“Placement rate overall for us is around close to 60% across the state,” Fox said, “that's a good thing because part of our program is to figure out if people really want to do this type of work. So, it's telling. It tells me that we're getting the right people in our programs that are really serious about wanting to get to do this type of work, and we're finding motivated people that are looking for a career path in a blue-collar lifestyle.”
Fox said it's important to bolster the number of people interested in working in the trades to keep up with the number retiring.
"Our average age of a worker right now is almost 43 years old. So when you think about that, and you fast forward 20 years when the average age is going to reach retirement, because most of us look at retirement around 60, 55 to 60 years old, we're going to have a huge problem because the work is not going to stop.”
The Missouri Works Initiative in particular aims to connect with demographics that have often had trouble finding a place in this line of work.
Fox said less then 7% of employees on construction job sites are African American and just 4% are women.
Learn more at moworksinitiative.org.