E-TEAM MACHINIST TRAINING PROGRAM

The E-Team Machinist Training Program is a young partnership through which a union and a community organization join forces to retain and expand good jobs in their community. It exemplifies the start-up of a small, tightly-focused new partnership in a smaller geographic area.

History

Until recently, people grew up in the working-class Boston suburb of Lynn, Massachusetts expecting to work at the local General Electric (GE) plant like their parents did. As GE and other manufacturers in the area reduced their workforces over the last decade, firms eliminated most internal training programs. Workers worried that their children might never work at GE, and also that they themselves might lose their jobs and not have the skills needed to get another job as good. At the same time, the Essex County Community organization (ECCO), an Industrial Areas Foundation model community organization, found that its members were concerned about the lack of good jobs, and began to address both unemployment and underemployment.

In response to worker and community concerns, members of ECCO, and of International Union of Electrical Workers (IUE) Local 201, to which most GE employees belong, reached out to each other and formed the E-Team, a training program designed to respond to unemployment and underemployment. Lynn is the home to both ECCO's leading parish and the IUE Local 201.

Goals

• To create and retain good jobs and a stronger economic base for the community;
• To establish standards that assure high-quality, worker-focused training delivered by experienced instructors;
• To maintain wage and benefit standards and opportunity for trainees;
• To meet employer needs for new workers and new skills in the existing workforce.

Activities

The E-Team Machinist Training Program offers entry-level training and placement, including some basic skills remediation, for machinists. This is a small training program without an institutional home. Training occurs in multiple locations, including a local vocational school's machine shop. The community college provides screening and basic skills training.

• To increase opportunities in immigrant community the union helped sponsor English as a Second Language (ESL) classes. The ESL program serves as a feeder program. Upon graduation, ESL participants are recruited into the machinist training.

Results

• Standards for training were raised because of union experience and knowledge that improved trainee employment opportunities. Of the first 32 graduates, three continued in school and 25 were placed or promoted in their existing jobs.
• Community partners at the insistence of the union came to accept higher wage and benefit expectations for graduates. Graduates received better job offers.
• Unions have contributed leadership and experience to the design and delivery of the curriculum. They have also played a significant role in recruitment, accounting for a third of all of the people entering training.
• The visible leadership of the religious communities helped to keep the coalition intact, and opened the door for broader activity with the union. Discussions of a broader coalition effort are underway.
• Increased participation by the immigrant community through the union-promoted ESL program and recruitment of graduates for machinist training.