The National Council of Structural Engineers Associations is ramping up a campaign to lure civil engineering students into structural studies and improve their preparation for practice. A mentoring program, designed to help practitioners move the student from the textbook to the workplace, is under development. NCSEA recently released an education survey listing 53 U.S. engineering schools that offer the association’s recommended curriculum. NCSEA is promoting Northeastern University’s work-study program in Boston as its mentoring model. “Our hope is to publicize nationally that which has worked so well with cooperative education at Northeastern,” says Craig E. Barnes, head of CBI Consulting
Adormant nuclear powerplant near Olympia, Wash., may never generate power, but the Laborers’ International Union of North America is putting a lot of energy into adapting the site’s abandoned 1,500-ft-long tunnel as a training tool. Located at the former Washington Public Power Supply System site, which was abandoned in 1982 after it defaulted on bond payments, the tunnel now serves the union’s new tunnel safety school. It is the only one in North America that targets construction, the laborers say. Augmenting the instruction is $130,000 worth of tunnel-boring machine (TBM) components donated by local contractors. “With multiple tunnel projects on
The Oregon State Apprenticeship and Training Council awarded Jennifer Smith her journey-level card Oct. 15 for electrical line work, ending a controversial year during which Smith claims her card was unfairly withheld. Related Links: Skilled Trades Are Tough for Women to Crack Smith had said that gender discrimination and sexual harassment were behind her failure to graduate from her apprenticeship with the Eugene Water and Electric Board (EWEB). The apprenticeship council has cited poor monthly progress reports given by Smith’s superiors, but in dramatic testimony in a hearing before the state’s Bureau of Labor and Industries, Smith accused one of
Oregon apprentice line worker Jennifer Smith’s recent struggle to receive her journeywoman card has focused attention on a recurring complaint of many tradeswomen around the world. Women interviewed by ENR say the issue goes beyond harassment at worksites. Their complaint: They are being held out of the construction industry. Photo: Courtesy Of Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. Jennifer Smith wants to be the second journey woman-level line worker in Oregon. + Image Photo: Courtesy Of Oregon Tradeswomen Inc. “Women have remained 2.5% of the construction-trades skilled workforce for the last 30 years,” says Melina Harris, a Carpenter’s Union Local 1797 member in
Most mentors in engineering push kids to excel in math, science and technology so they can succeed in the field. But a Tuscaloosa, Ala., geotechnical engineering firm champions reading skills as its mentoring cause for young students in any career—and the effort is working. Photo: Courtesy of TTL Inc. Photo: Courtesy of TTL Inc. Reading incentive mentor program sponsored by TTL Inc. has boosted student performance, says President McClure. Committed employees at TTL Inc. not only have helped raise stubbornly low reading test scores in several Southern-area elementary schools, they also have sharpened their firm’s connection to local clients and
Even with gloomy news of client cutbacks, results of a new survey of 300 owners are giving construction managers some hope that more in-house project management roles would be outsourced. At the annual convention of the Construction Management Association of America in San Diego, some 1,000 attendees learned Oct. 4 that at least half of owners who responded to the study, done jointly by CMAA and industry management firm FMI, reduced internal staff in the last two years; 18% noted cutbacks of more than 20%. Nearly one-third of respondents to the survey, which CMAA says is "across a wide range
The U.S. has enough skilled workers to facilitate a nuclear-power renaissance, but that expertise could disappear for a decade or more if new projects fail to materialize, a panel of industry experts said on Aug. 30 at a hearing in Washington, D.C. “Accumulating a pool of highly skilled and highly valued and qualified construction workers needed to build nuclear units and maintain them will no doubt be a challenge,” said Sean McGarvey, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO Building and Construction Trades Dept. In Washington, D.C., addressing the Obama Administration’s Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear Future, he said the economic crisis
The National Labor Relations Board has ruled that the posting of stationary banners by members of a construction union at a secondary employer’s workplace does not violate the nation’s labor laws. Photo: Pacific Northwest Regional Council of Carpenters Related Links: National Labor Relations Board Ruling Knoxville Carpenters Protest Drywall Contractor Carpenters Target Businesses in Tulsa with Banners Pacific Northwest carpenters’ council website The 3-2 decision, split along party lines, is one of the first major rulings on a controversial issue from the board’s new roster of members. Organized labor considers the case a significant victory. The board has at least
Two years after making its first stab at rejoining organized labor, the Laborers International Union of North America is completing the reunion by returning to the AFL-CIO. The union, which bolted in 2006 to form an independent alliance with two other building trades, had reaffiliated with the umbrella group’s Building and Construction Trades Dept. in 2008. O’SULLIVAN The union rejoins the AFL-CIO after departing four years ago over a bitter dispute about the umbrella organization’s focus on political rather than grassroots organizing. The AFL-CIO re-affiliation becomes effective on Oct. 1. The laborers have shed 300,000 members in recent years amid
Following nine hours of negotiations on July 19, Chicago contractors and unions reached a tentative three-year agreement on wages and health-care benefits to end a three-week strike. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 and Chicago-area Laborers’ District Council reached a settlement with owners’ representative Mid-America Regional Bargaining Association (MARBA) that includes a 3.25% annual wage increase and health-care benefits for three years. The unions originally sought annual increases of 5.3% for three years. A Local 150 press release said the pact means pickets would be “taken down immediately.” “It was a difficult negotiation with good results,” Lissa Christman,
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