FLOTUS Touts Growing Union Apprenticeships In Columbus
First Lady Jill Biden joined leaders in Columbus this week to highlight the city as a major Workforce Hub and to announce plans that ensures students and workers will have access to good-paying jobs created by President Biden’s Investing in America agenda. In May, the Biden-Harris Administration named Columbus as one of five Workforce Hubs where historic legislation intorduced by President Biden, including the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, are catalyzing private and public investments and creating good-paying jobs. These investments demonstrate how Bidenomics—President Biden’s vision for growing the economy from the middle out and bottom up—is creating jobs and opportunity in cities and states across the country.
Mike Knisley, Executive Secretary, Ohio State Building and Constructions Trades Council had the honor of introducing the First Lady.
Columbus has emerged as a center of investment in key industries—including semiconductor manufacturing, clean energy, biotechnology, high-performance computing, and transportation. The Administration is working alongside Mayor Andrew Ginther and Columbus State Community College (CSCC) to bring together unions, higher education institutions, high schools, employers, and other stakeholders to ensure a diverse and skilled workforce that can meet the demand for labor driven by investments in and around Columbus.
Hub partners are announcing the following commitments and goals to expand pathways into these good jobs:
Partners will prepare at least 10,000 skilled construction trades workers to meet the demandof announced expansion projects in the region. To help get there, the Columbus / Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council will expand the pipeline into critical Investing in America occupations:
IBEW 683 Columbus will expand its Registered Apprenticeship program from 600 to 1,000 over the next four years.
Ironworkers 172 Columbus will increase their Registered Apprenticeship program from 150 to 250 in the next two years.
Plumbers and Pipefitters 189 Columbus, Sheet Metal Workers 24 Columbus, and Roofers 86 Columbus are all expanding their training facilities to meet the demand driven by these investments.
SCC will work with partners across the state to quadruple the number of students trained for engineering technology jobs over the next five years.
This fall, CSCC will launch a new certificate program for semiconductor technician roles that was developed in partnership with Intel through the Ohio Semiconductor Collaboration Network.