Plain Talk: $40 an hour and up construction jobs worth a look

When Dave Branson, the executive director of the Building and Construction Trades Council of South Central Wisconsin, stopped by the office on a recent morning, he handed me a card.

On it was a list of skilled trades followed by a set of figures that showed the hourly pay and fringe benefits for each of them.

Examples:

Boilermakers earn $32.05 an hour with fringes averaging another $28.04 for a total of $60.09 per hour.

Total hourly pay and fringes for bricklayers: $51.74; cement finishers, $50.05; drywall finishers, $43.65; electricians, $54.63; ironworkers, $53.23; laborers, $40.09; painters, $43.35; plumbers, $55.24; sheet metal workers, $58.95.

You get the picture.

There are decent-paying jobs to be had, but in an age when many believe a college degree is the only avenue to success and others are leery that they don't have the qualifications to work in a trade, the construction industry is having trouble finding enough applicants.

In Milwaukee a few years back, both employers and unions began searching for ways to connect the unemployed and especially young minorities with these jobs. At first the employers group, the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, and the building trades organization, Big Step, set out on their own. They eventually merged their efforts and now with help from Dane County and several city agencies are well into an initiative to connect job seekers with construction work here.

"Labor and management have a shared stake in finding and training workers for these jobs," Mark Kessenich, the WRTP's vice president, said on a visit to the office.

As Cap Times reporter Steve Elbow reported earlier this year, the county, the trades and community groups like the Urban League and the Nehemiah Corp. are hoping that the program will help fill construction jobs and also help put minority job seekers to work.

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Plain Talk: $40 an hour and up construction jobs worth a look