Buffalo News (New York), September 4, 2006, Monday

Copyright 2006 The Buffalo News
All Rights Reserved
Buffalo News (New York)

September 4, 2006 Monday
FINAL EDITION

SECTION: NEWS; Pg. A1

HEADLINE: Young workers seeking security in uncertain blue-collar world;
Education, training play important roles in obtaining a job

BYLINE: By Fred O. Williams - NEWS BUSINESS REPORTER

BODY:
Bennie Baskin has an entry-level job in construction, but he wants more for himself and his family.
"To me, $10 an hour with no benefits, it's not much money," the 22 year-old said. "I have a daughter, a wife."
He finished a construction training program and now is working toward his high school general education diploma so he can get a union apprenticeship.
Stephanie D'Angelo, 25, left behind a string of low-wage jobs to enroll in classes at Erie Community College. She's on track to become a counselor.
After leaving Tonawanda High School without a degree at age 16, "I wasn't going anywhere in life," she said. "I was working dead-end jobs."
Labor Day celebrates the achievements of working people, but work alone may not build a future. Baskin and D'Angelo learned that the hard way by leaving school early and struggling at the bottom rungs of the job market.
But like other young working people, they're seeking skills and other advantages to make blue-collar work pay.
Baskin finished a nine-month program called "Youthbuild" that combined classroom work with on-the-job construction training. D'Angelo is getting help with child care through the Buffalo Urban League while she's in classes.
"There's such a big change from when my father entered the work force 50 or so years ago," said Colleen Cummings, director of the Buffalo Employment and Training Center at 77 Goodell St. "A strong back would get you a good job in a steel mill."
The hope that an ordinary job will lead to a white-picket-fence lifestyle has been fading for decades. Once-mighty employers are on the ropes, pensions and health coverage are going out of style, and unions that protect blue-collar jobs are losing clout.
For people with a long career ahead of them, the way isn't clear. The typical person held 10.5 jobs between the ages of 18 and 40, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in a study in August. It's not clear how many of those job changes were voluntary, but at least some were the result of layoffs.
And that was for "late-boomers" who were born between 1957 and 1964. For younger people entering the work force now, there's no telling how many job changes they will face.
Seeking skills is a common response by people of all ages. In the year ended June 30, 3,367 people in Erie County sought training, workshops, career counseling or other help from programs funded under the federal Workforce Investment Act.
In the same period, there were 9,427 visitors to Erie County's two "one-stop" employment centers, including the one that Cummings heads in downtown Buffalo, to look for jobs and the skills to land them.
Jobs are out there, but finding ones that pay well is the problem. U.S. median family income actually fell 2.9 percent since 2000 after inflation, according to estimates by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank in Washington, D.C. During the same period, the population below the poverty line rose 17 percent.
"Younger workers have been hit the hardest as new high school and college graduates are taking jobs with lower pay and benefits," economist Sylvia Allegretto said.
Baskin just turned 22, putting his "normal" retirement in 2049. Before that day arrives, he expects to do more than obtain his GED and a journeyman's certificate. Although he's still working on his high school diploma, he plans to go back to school -- college next time -- for more training in building trades.
The Buffalo resident said he also seeks the security of a unionized job, which he said means better benefits in the construction trades.
"Some people say don't go into the union -- that's somebody else's opinion," he said.
In heavily unionized New York, at least, plenty share Baskin's opinion. In 2004, 53 percent of workers said they would join a union if given the option, according to a survey by Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. That's double the state's actual rate of unionization.
While union membership is falling, labor organizations say they are working to provide more of what workers -- and, often, employers -- want, including training that provides a degree of economic security. Building trades unions have long sponsored apprenticeship programs for skilled work. In the United Auto Workers, training programs are offered jointly with employers like Ford, American Axle & Manufacturing and others.
Even in manufacturing, blue-collar careers still beckon some with the right skills. The sector has lost 29,000 jobs since 1990, nearly a third of its total, making many young workers look elsewhere for careers. But those with training are still valued workers on the shop floor.
Some 50 local companies provide jobs for people who complete a 15-week machinist training course at Erie Community College, part of a longer manufacturing degree program.
"They're all looking for skilled employees who can step in and be a machinist or tool-and-die maker," said Richard Washousky, associate vice president for academics.
About 85 students in the ECC industrial technology program are training to operate machines and do other factory tasks.
"These are not low-end skills anymore -- everything is computer and math driven," Washousky said. Program graduates can expect to get jobs at $10 to $14 an hour to start and more as their skills increase with experience.
Some young people even switch from the university path to a blue-collar track.
Michael Keating enrolled in the ECC industrial program after striving for a university degree in mechanical engineering.
"It just wasn't for me," the 24-year-old said. "I'm not a test-taking type -- I'm more hands-on."
Now Keating carves blocks of steel into molds for plastic parts at Moldcraft in Depew, as part of an internship while he takes classes in the evenings.
His career shift wasn't too much of a shock at home -- his father makes radiators at Delphi Corp., and his grandfather was a tool-and-die maker.
Factory work "is kind of in the family," he said.
e-mail: fwilliams@buffnews.com

GRAPHIC: Sharon Cantillon/Buffalo News Aiming to shape his future in the labor force, Tony Morrison works on a milling machine in an industrial technology class at the Erie Community College North Campus. Robert Ebner becomes familiar with a high-tech drilling machine at ECC North Campus.