Unions move into the classroom
When many people think about unions, they picture picket lines and strikes, but Cheryl Feldman takes the union cause into the classroom.
When many people think about unions, they picture picket lines and strikes, but Cheryl Feldman takes the union cause into the classroom.
Feldman, 57, of Roxborough, is one of dozens of union officials across the region and hundreds around the nation involved in education and workforce development, usually in partnership with union employers.
Through her union, District 1199C of the Philadelphia-based National Union of Hospital and Healthcare Employees, Feldman runs the District 1199C Training and Upgrading Fund.
It's a joint venture between her union and 50 area employers, including the Temple University and Jefferson health systems.
The organization also gets funding from foundations and through government education and training contracts for courses ranging from general literacy to specific skills needed in health-care professions.
Question:
Why did you get into this work?
Answer:
. . . It was always a very compelling idea to me - that career advancement through education just raises the whole boat in society, the workplace, and in the union. . . . What made this organization especially compelling was that it was a labor-management organization. . . . The employer and the union working together is such a powerful combination . . .
Q: I've been reading about something called sector training. What is that?
A:
[Sectors] are clusters of employment and career opportunities within an industry - health care . . . life sciences . . . manufacturing.. . . In the past, workforce development may have had training programs that really didn't drill down into a particular sector. . . .The sector initiative involves . . . really doing an assessment on what the needs of that sector are. From a workforce-development perspective, that incorporates not just the front-line workers, but what are the career-ladder opportunities?
Q:
Hasn't a lot of workforce training just been getting people in the door, and then neglecting them in low-level jobs?
A:
Absolutely. . . . The best sector initiatives are really approaching a strategy for changing those low-wage jobs into family-sustaining jobs - with health benefits and pensions - that are connected to career ladders.
Q: Give me an example.
A:
The residential workers who are working in mental health and mental retardation. . . . There are very few credentials required. And there are no career ladders. . . . You get in that job, and with some exceptions, . . . there's really not anywhere you can go. We have an industry-partnership stakeholder group involved [in] creating a degree program that hasn't existed previously, that gives college credits for our behavioral-health technician program.
Q:
After they've done all this work, what are they getting?
A:
Two [partner] employers have agreed that the result of this work will be promotion, creating career ladders in direct patient-care delivery.
Q: Higher pay?
A:
Yes. . . . Wages will be tied to these career-ladder steps.
Q:
What have the companies said?
A:
Our employers find that this whole educational-engagement piece is really a systems-change piece in and of itself. Because it totally turns around what's going on in that workplace.
Q:
You're thinking about doing this in another sector?
A:
. . . There is a new group in the city that has formed called the Workforce Solutions Collaborative. . . . Our mission is to bridge the workforce-development world and the adult-education world. They've really been separate worlds. . . . The idea of the Workforce Solutions Collaborative is to develop an infrastructure in Philadelphia . . . to offer to employers and workers the opportunity to customize adult education for, for example, manufacturing. There are actually lots of manufacturing jobs in Philadelphia. And there's a shortage of skilled workers who can qualify for those jobs.
Q:
Give me an example.
A:
Customizing math: If there are technical math skills, let's develop a math course that directly relates to what's going on in that manufacturing industry.
. . .
If centimeters are what's required, people have to learn the metric system, they have to learn decimals, they have to understand fractions. But it's taught in the context of what's needed in that industry. It makes it more relevant for the workers, and it certainly is more relevant for the employers.
. . . We have to make it a win-win, for both the worker and the employer.
Q:
Now we may be facing a recession. Where do you see what you're doing in relationship to that?
A:
See, that's been the beauty of the model we've developed, which is portable skills, based on credentials . . . wherever possible connected to college credits. Part of the problem in employer-based training is that it's not credential-based and not tied to college credits. Those skills are often not portable, they're limited to that particular employer. On-the-job training isn't enough anymore.
Q:
Are there wider implications?
A:
Sixty percent of Philadelphians are considered low literate.
It's
kind of shocking.
Q:
And?
A:
We have to reach them at work. This is going to be our workforce for the next couple of decades at least. We have to address the youth problem coming out of the schools. But we can't ignore the workers who are working now. We want to be able to attract good employers to Philadelphia, right? We want to be able to keep our employers who are here. We have to have a skilled workforce. We have to.