Building Trades Partner With Native American
Leaders To Create Union Jobs

October 5, 2009

The recession may have sent the unemployment rate to record levels, but for many Native Americans living on reservations throughout the United States, joblessness isn’t a unique situation – it’s the norm.  In many reservations, unemployment can run as high as 70 percent, undercutting hopes for the future for young Native Americans.

But a new alliance between Native American leaders and the more than a dozen building trades unions holds out the hope of bringing good-paying union careers to Indian country.

The Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, and the Council for Tribal Employment Rights – a nonprofit organization that serves 300 tribes and Alaska native villages – celebrated the creation of the Native Construction Careers Institute, which was formed this summer, at a press conference in Washington, D.C. on September 30.

Building Trades President Mark Ayers told attendees:

The NCCI … will forge a partnership with Native American Tribal Councils to help deliver training in the construction industry to the men and women of Indian country … We are immensely proud to be part of the NCCI and to work with the tribal leaders to provide the much needed training and expertise that will (give)thousands of Native Americans an opportunity to secure careers as skilled craft professionals.

The first formal partnership between a group of unions and tribal organizations, the NCCI’s goal is to increase opportunities for long-term careers for Native Americans while promoting union construction projects on tribal land. 

According to Conrad Edwards, president of the Council for Tribal Employment Rights:

To have all the parent unions giving us the extra push to help get our people out of poverty and participating in building projects on their own reservations is almost overwhelming.

Training will be provided by union instructors on the reservations using mobile training equipment. The focus will be on training for jobs that will help keep union workers in Indian country in order to make sure the program benefits the entire community.

Says North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan (D), whose state has one of the largest concentrations of Native Americans in the country:

There is no better social program than a good paying job.

Says IBEW President Edwin D. Hill, one of the signatories to the NCCI:

The building trades have been the road to the middle class for generations of Americans, and I’m proud that we are bringing good-paying union jobs to a community that for too long has been ignored by political and business leaders.

Photo used under a Creative Commons License from user Hummingcrow.