The Chicago Board of Education will try to operate a nonunion carpentry training program at its Washburne Trade School, following a decision by the carpenters union to leave the program in a dispute over female and minority recruitment, it was announced Thursday.
A long-simmering dispute between the building trades and the school board took a new turn with a move belittled by both supporters and critics of the carpenters union, which has decided to relocate its apprentice program in Elk Grove Village.
Washburne, 3100 S. Kedzie Ave., provides postsecondary vocational education, including training for a range of trade apprentices.
The carpenters` pullout is significant because at least 40 percent of the 2,100 students attending Washburne have been enrolled in the carpentry program.
Moreover, the union`s program, operated in conjunction with the board and carpentry contractors, has meant solid wages and job opportunities for Chicago students. Apprentices earn as much as $13.50 an hour while at Washburne and are virtually guaranteed a job after finishing the program.
Despite the union`s pullout announcement, hope had remained among many groups that an agreement could be worked out.
Lauren Sugarman, director of Chicago Women in Trades, which has been critical of low female and minority enrollment as well as sexual harassment in the building trades and at Washburne, said:
”We ultimately think our best interests are in union programs since they bring better wages, benefits and training. We don`t want to be second-class citizens in a second-class setup.
”We`re not looking for alternatives to the union programs. We just wanted our fair share of them.”
An official of another union said the board`s plan was ”appalling and stupid.”
A board spokesman was careful to say that its Washburne ad hoc committee planned to begin a carpentry ”training,” not apprentice, program when the school year starts in September.
Still, he said, the board`s goal is to fully replace the carpenters program.
”The board has not slammed the door on the carpenters,” the spokesman said. ”If they want to return, they are welcome to do so. But the board has a role and a responsibility. The superintendent is firmly committed to have a program in place.”
The board has called for apprenticeship classes at Washburne to be 40 percent black, 14 percent Hispanic and 20 percent female. The carpenters union contends it meets and surpasses lower federal guidelines.
Several trades experts scoffed at the board`s notion that it could develop a productive program, including bonafide job opportunities, without the carpenters union and its contractors.
”We hope the city would still try to bring these union programs back,”
Sugarman said.
”It`s unconscionable that the city would let this happen. We did not want, and do not want, the union apprenticeship programs severed from Washburne.”
