Cruise on over to our AFL-CIO home page for two new features that spotlight an innovative training program from Chicago Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 597 (UA) and a look at the creative campaign music video dancers are waging for a fair contract.

Building and construction trades unions operate the largest U.S. worker training program outside the military. One example is Local 597, which for 90 years has operated a hands-on and classroom training program for young workers seeking skills and a path to the middle class. Today, outside of Chicago, the Pipe Fitters Training Center occupies more than 200,000 square feet of work space, where 850 apprentices learn the exacting trade of welding and pipe-fitting in 114 welding booths.     

“There’s always a shortage of trained alloy pipe welders,” says training center director John Leen. “We knew that if we trained our apprentices under the best conditions, contractors would clamor for them.”

Dan Sharpe, president of Morrison Construction, which looks to the training center for skilled workers, says:

Here’s what Local 597’s training center means to me: We’re getting the highest caliber craftsmen in the business.

Find out the full story by clicking on the “Innovators” box at www.aflcio.org. 

More than 30 years ago, MTV went on the air and the music video became a cornerstone of pop culture and the music business. Now, says the Dancers Alliance, “It’s About Time” for a fair contract for dancers and other performers in music videos.

In a series of more than a dozen videos, dancers from iconic videos of the past and present and those who will no doubt create art in the future talk about their love of their art, their working conditions and what a union contract would mean for their futures.

Go to our home page and click on the “Creative Action” box.