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July 7, 2005

Yawu Miller

As the Boston Convention Center was going up, Oscar Vega was learning his trade, installing metal framing, drywall and other duties assigned to members of the Carpenters Union.

His participation in the Building Trades Pre-Apprenticeship program gave him a hand in construction projects at Mass General Hospital, the John Adams Court House and other major projects around Boston.

But the greatest benefit of his work is the pay and benefits that comes from being a union member.

“At the age of 18, I’m making more than my father makes,” Vega said matter-of-factly. “I’m getting married in November and I’ll be able to buy a home next year. Not everyone can say they have a career at 18.”

Looking out from the windows of an upper floor of the Boston Convention Center, a 270 degree view reveals a panorama of construction projects from the steel frame of a nearby hotel on adjacent D street to the cantilevered steel structure of the Institute for Contemporary Art’s new waterfront building and a bevy of new office towers in the west.

For Vega and others in the building trades each building presents potential jobs. For the construction firms that are contracted to build the new edifices, the challenge is to find the workers to fill the demand.

“The number of young people entering construction is decreasing and the median age of construction workers is going up,” noted Scott Bates of Tishman Construction.

Last week, Mayor Thomas Menino celebrated the Building Careers Partnership, an initiative involving construction companies and unions to bring more Boston youth into the building trades.

“We are committed to building a skilled workforce here in Boston and we are just as committed to giving our city’s youth the opportunity to become part of that workforce,” Menino said. “Too many of our kids in the city just don’t come into contact with people who work in the construction trades.”

The partnership enables teens to take summer jobs with contractors that give them exposure to the construction industry. Under the program, each week students spend four days working in the building trades and one day a week of industry-focussed learning.

Not all of the participants in the program plan to stay in the hands-on aspects of the building trade. Giomaro Correia, who worked with Turner Construction in February on a job shadow day, plans to gain as much experience as possible over the course of the summer before he enrolls at Wentworth Institute of Technology to pursue a degree in engineering.

“Every day I’m faced with lessons and tasks that I will be faced with over the next four years,” he said. “No book could give me that experience.”

Turner construction is one of more than 16 companies that have joined the effort to provide summer jobs for Boston public school students.

More than 100 Boston Public School students participated in the job shadow day and a Construction Career Day put on by the building trades at their training facility in Hopkinton.

For more information on the partnership, contact Christopher Burke at the Boston Private Industry Council at 617-438-5465.

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