Masonry Magazine February 1999 Page. 9
FROM THE PRESIDENT
Mason contractors all across the country are starved for help. Open shop contractors, union contractors, residential contractors and commercial mason contractors can't find enough quality masons to hire. In fact, probably the number one issue for all mason contractors is finding quality workers. The masonry industry in fact is no different than any other construction trade in America. According to reports from the U.S. Department of Labor by the year 2000, the entire construction industry will face a shortfall of one million workers.
So why is it that if work force development is a contractors number one priority, and in light of government workforce projections, so many contractors spend virtually no time at all recruiting and training workers? In fact, many contractors are even resistant to hire an apprentice to spend time developing a journeyman.
For decades, mason contractors were engaged in recruiting and training. Active Joint Apprenticeship Training Programs were once vital to developing masonry's workforce. Contractors played an active vital role in the JATC programs and training flourished. Indenturing was also an important aspect of our industry's apprenticeship training where a contractor committed to a student of the trade and agreed to assist in the training process and in return the apprentice committed to the contractor. However, over the years, contractors began to relinquish control of our industry's recruiting and training efforts. Indenturing all but vanished and the quality to the skills of the apprentice suffered.
Why Contractors Involvement is Vital to a Successful Program
Donald Larsen
President, Mason Contractors Association of America
Since its heyday, union training programs have waned and are non-existent in many portions of the country. Open shop training programs, once loose knit, began to sprout up around the country and employed many of the indenturing benefits so successful in the industry's heyday.
Today, a flurry of training programs are taking hold throughout the U.S. and Canada. Suppliers are eager to assist local training programs with supplies, tools and assistance. Quality training materials such as the MCAA Mason Training Series are being utilized in increasing numbers. Recruiting programs are being conducted in the country's secondary and middle schools.
VICA and Votech programs are expanding in our nations high schools which are quality feeder programs to our nations full-fledged apprenticeship programs.
But the one critical missing link that will insure our recruiting and training programs' success is the mason contractor. Very few mason contractors are active today in either recruiting or training programs. Even though, finding quality masons to employ is a contractors number one priority; the overwhelming majority of contractors have never conducted a career day at a high school or volunteered to help an apprenticeship program. As a contractor, I to can be accused of not spending the time necessary to recruit our industry future workers.
As contractors we spend hours each week dealing with customers, promoting our companies and trying to get more work. But most of us have never seen the inside of a high school since we ourselves graduated.
Mason contractors are critical to building our industry's labor force. No one else is as important to the process. It's not the unions job to recruit and train, it's the mason contractors job. It's not local association staff or a masonry instructor's job to recruit and train; it's the mason contractor. We may delegate the physical role of teaching the classes to an instructor, but it's the contractor that must go to the high school and talk about careers in masonry. And it's the mason contractor that must chair and serve on a masonry apprenticeship committee to oversee the training programs. It's the mason contractor that must periodically monitor training classes by attending them to review the instructional process. It's the mason contractor that must hire an apprentice even if after two years of training that apprentice, they go to work for someone else. It's the mason contractor that must sign active journeyman up for continuing educational classes to stay current with new masonry methods and codes. And it's the mason contractor that must commit several hours each week to devote to recruiting and training.
Because by committing only a few hours each week, it's the mason contractor that will make our recruitment efforts successful.
Today, there are roughly 14,000 high schools in the United States with roughly three times as many middle schools feeding the high schools. Conservative estimates place the amount of mason contracting firms at 10,000 active firms. Clearly, as an industry, we have the capability to get to these schools and begin the slow