It wasn't a Rolling Stones concert that drew 800 men and women to camp out for five days in Queens, N.Y., it was the chance at landing a coveted union job opening. 

The New York Times reported a union elevator mechanic job prompted nearly 1,000 young workers to haul out tents and mattresses and weather the great outdoors of Long Island City at the chance to be considered. 

Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 3 handed out applications for its apprentice program. 

We’re following the story of Hannah Cooper, an apprentice with Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 11 in Los Angeles. Here’s her latest report and check out her first entry.

For the past year and a half, ­­I’ve had the great fortune of working on the new addition to the Tom Bradley International Terminal at the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). In the first two years of my electrical apprenticeship with IBEW Local 11, I worked on small jobs for small shops that had a very limited scope of work, so there weren’t very many aspects of the trade I had exposure to, much to my disappointment.

The Ironworkers are committed to green training and consider themselves the "original recyclers." Learn more from California Ironworkers Apprenticeship Director Dick Zampa in this video the Ironworkers sent us. 

The Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW) program in New York City prepares women for careers in construction and related industries through an innovative training and placement program that guides low-income women toward a meaningful career and solid financial footing.

Apprentices develop, and experienced workers refresh, skills at the International Union of Operating Engineers' state-of-the-art training center in Wilmington, Ill. The Local 150 center houses classrooms, testing labs, welding facilities, an equipment simulator lab and an indoor training arena large enough for 18 pieces of equipment to be used simultaneously.

In this video, meet the apprentices who now hold a promising future and the employers eager to receive a trained workforce.

Today’s military veterans face one of the toughest job markets in decades, and their unemployment rate is significantly higher than the population at large. But thanks to the Helmets to Hardhats program, which connects veterans with quality career training and employment opportunities within the building and construction industry, many veterans are now on ascending career paths.

A recent Philadelphia Inquirer feature focuses on two U.S. Marine Corps veterans who are putting to work the training and opportunities provided by Sheet Metal, Air, Rail and Transportation Workers (SMART) Local 19 in South Philadelphia.

Over the next few months, we'll be following the story of Hannah Cooper, an apprentice with Electrical Workers (IBEW). Check out her first entry below:

My entire life my mother has been a union electrician—a fact of life I never thought to question. It was where she spent her days while I was growing up, and it gave her the means to support our family. Although I understood and in my own way appreciated this fact, it never once occurred to me when considering potential career paths. I had this idea that I was going to make a career for myself in the arts and spend my time traveling the world as a dancer—maybe do some part-time modeling for supplemental income—acquire a bachelor's degree at a four-year university back East and maybe try to join a dance company. This was the plan anyways, from my early years of childhood up through the first half of my senior year of high school, when I realized I didn’t want to be a dancer anymore. I stopped showing up to my college auditions, completely throwing a wrench in the plan.

The Culinary Academy of Las Vegas, a partnership among the Culinary Workers Union/UNITE HERE Local 226, Bartenders Union/UNITE HERE Local 165 and 26 properties on the Las Vegas Strip, teaches students everything they need to know to get a position with good wages and benefits in the hospitality industry. The vocational classes, which range from two weeks to three months, kick off with a half-day class, which teaches students interview techniques and how to be gainfully employed on the Strip. In addition to training 35,000 workers since its inception in 1993, it also serves nearly 900 hot meals daily to disadvantaged youth, seniors and veterans in the surrounding neighborhood. This video highlights how students trained in this program will find promising careers.

On the evening of May 1, 2010, firefighters from Uniformed Fire Officers Association Local 854 in New York City got a call about a car fire in Times Square. Six minutes later, Lts. Mike Barvels and John Kazan arrived on the scene to find an SUV parked with one wheel on a curb, hazard lights blinking. The firefighters spotted a number of warning signs, most importantly the white, slow-moving smoke coming from the vehicle. They knew typical car fires involve dark, billowing smoke. Barvels and Kazan decided not to use their fire hose on the truck and instead called for experts to come investigate.

In a tough economy, how does a kid from a rough-and-tumble neighborhood go about finding a good job that pays well or obtain the skills needed to become the worker employers want to hire?

One path is through the TCU/IAM Job Corps Program. In 1971, TCU/IAM partnered with the U.S. Department of Labor to provide advanced transportation training to young people looking for careers. Today, hundreds of students take part in the program each year and more than 8,400 young men and women have been placed in meaningful jobs in rail, mass transit and airline companies since its inception.

Check out the AFL-CIO's new website Innovators feature, Track Switch: TCU/IAM Job Corps Program Delivers Careers.