WNYLaborToday.com Editor’s Note: Pictured above, International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 17 Training Coordinator Kelly Roblee (on the left) and Local 17 Training Fund Administrative Manager James Smolinski, Jr. (on the right) have their arms wipe open and are ready to welcome back more than 1,000 high school students from across the region in early October as Western New York Construction Career Days returns following a two-year hiatus.  In an effort to introduce more young people to a possible life-long career in the Unionized Building Trades, the students will get a chance to get some hands-on experience, participating in and being allowed to operate a number of pieces of construction machinery, all under the watchful direction of Local 17’s Retirees. (WNYLaborToday.com Photos & File Photos)

(LAKE VIEW, NEW YORK) – After a two-year hiatus, it’s baaack!  Western New York Construction Career Days is getting ready to welcome more than 1,000 high school students to a two-day event that will be held on October 4th and 5th, which will personally introduce them to a possible long-term career in the Unionized Building Trades.

The Buffalo Building & Construction Trades Council and its affiliated 18-Member Unions - which combine to represent 10,000 Working Men and Women across Western New York - last held its 10th Construction Career Days Event at International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 17’s sprawling 400-acre Training Site in Lakeview in 2014 when it attracted a record 1,200 students from across the region.

The massive undertaking was put on hold for a couple of years because of a “number of reasons,” Construction Career Days Board of Trustee Member Gary Bernardo of Laborers Local 210 tells WNYLaborToday.com - but a combination of “continuous calls from the high schools who wanted the event to resume and an amount of money the Building Trades had left over” in its accounts prompted its return, he said.

“We had ‘several dozen’ phone calls ‘asking why we weren’t doing another one.’  ‘They wanted to come back out,’” Bernardo said of the continued interest.  “The (high school) counselors were telling us their students were ‘getting a lot out of it and were talking about it for weeks afterward, about how great it was.’  ‘This is for the kids and hopefully it will get them into our Apprenticeship Programs.’  For many of them, ‘we’ll give them an opportunity they’ve never been given before.’”

IUOE Local 17 Training Fund Administrative Manager James Smolinski, Jr. said his Building Trades Union is getting ready to re-host the event after the two-year break and is “excited” about its return.  “We ‘had this going strong for ten years’ and the schools ‘have been calling for us to get it going again,’” Smoker told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.  “This year ‘is different because we are, for the most part, self-funded – and there seems to be a new energy and spirit.’”

Over those two days during the first week of October, students from nearly 30 high school districts across Western New York are anticipated to attend.  They’ll be introduced to the work done by the individual Trades in individual locations and will be provided with a variety of hands-on experience, ranging from driving small bobcat bulldozers overseen by on-site IUOE Local 17 Retirees to operating virtual welding booths and being repelled down a scaffold by Ironworkers Local 6 Members.

IUOE Local 17 Business Manager Gary Swan (Pictured Below/WNYLaborToday.com Photo) says - matter-of-factly – that the Western New York Construction Career Days event “should have never been cancelled.”

“People were ‘asking us all the time’ - ‘What’s going on with Construction Career Days?’  ‘We should have never have stopped it because everyone’s so interested in it’ - even our Retirees who participate in it.  Now, they’re getting back involved.  ‘It was always something they liked to do,’” Swain told WNYLaborToday.com.

The event is seen as an important one for a number of reasons, but most notably as an effort to get more young people interested in a career in the Building Trades.  That’s because more and more older Tradesmen and Tradeswomen are retiring, says IUOE Local 17 Training Coordinator Kelly Roblee - who notes the average age of a qualified and high-trained Unionized Construction Worker is in the range of 62 to 64. 

“They ‘aren’t enough people to fill open the open spots.’  ‘That’s why you have to target these kids and make them aware the Trades can be a great career for them.’  So, ‘instead of going to college and being ($150,000) in debt (after four years of schooling), they can earn while they learn and be paid during the course of the Apprentice Training, becoming highly-skilled and paid in a tremendous career,’” Roblee said.

Construction Career Days’ historical success has been built on an amazing Labor-Management Relationship.  In 2014, the event had an operating cost of around $100,000 - which was funded from a variety of sources – ranging from the Buffalo Trades organization itself to non-profit donations to ad revenue from an event program to tens of thousands of dollars in in-kind services from participating contractors, including equipment and fuel. 

This year, according to the Laborers’ Bernardo, there is enough to not only fund this year’s event, but in 2018 as well: “The whole group is ‘back at the table again.’  We had twenty-five at our last meeting and we’ve got enough money for this year and next.”

Also involved is long-time ally - the Construction Exchange of Buffalo & WNY Incorporated, a 35-year-old local organization that represents a variety of construction contractors - and several participating educational institutions, including Alfred State University, BOCES and Erie Community College.

The Buffalo Building Trades’ affiliated Member Unions Include: Boilermakers Local 7 of Orchard Park; Bricklayers & Allied Craftsworkers Local 3 of Buffalo; Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters Local 276 of Cheektowaga; Cement Masons Local 111 of North Tonawanda; International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 41 of Orchard Park; Elevator Constructors Local 14 of Cheektowaga; Heat & Frost Insulators Local 4 of West Seneca;  Ironworkers Local 6 of West Seneca; Laborers Local 210 of Cheektowaga; Millwrights Local 1163 of Western New York; IUOE Local 17; International Union of Painters & Allied Trades (IUPAT)/Painters District Council 4 of Cheektowaga; Plasterers Local 9 of North Tonawanda; U.A. Plumbers & Steamfitters Local 22 of Orchard Park; Roofers Local 74 of Cheektowaga; Sheet Metal Workers Local 71 of Buffalo; U.A. Road Sprinklerfitters Local 669 of Buffalo; and Teamsters Local 449 of Buffalo.