Connecticut elected officials tell U.S. Labor secretary manufacturers need training pipeline funds
Groton — U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez heard Thursday about a sheet metal manufacturing curriculum being developed for Three Rivers Community College and how Electric Boat is helping to design the welding shop and its curriculum at Ella T. Grasso Southeastern Technical High School.
But he also heard from the Eastern Connecticut Manufacturing Pipeline Initiative about the need to identify funding sources for this type of infrastructure and training so manufacturers will have the skills they need in new employees.
On Thursday morning at EB's Groton facility, where most of the company's Connecticut manufacturing jobs are based, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, U.S. Rep Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, and Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn., joined Secretary Perez at a roundtable discussion about ways to train the next generation of manufacturing workers in eastern Connecticut.
With them were members of the pipeline initiative, a public and private partnership of local business leaders, educators, advocates and government officials.
Earlier in the day Perez, the governor and the Connecticut delegation toured the shipyard, met EB managers and new employees training in advanced welding techniques, and viewed the submarines under construction.
The defense manufacturing sector in eastern Connecticut, led by EB, is growing. Malloy said the Second District is the "73rd most intensive manufacturing Congressional district in the country" and that with the districts of U.S. Rep. John Larson, D-1st District, and U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty, D-5th District, "we have a big swath of manufacturing."
"We are number two in New England," Malloy said during a press briefing after the group discussion. "Our average growth was 2.3 percent in manufacturing output in 2013, and I believe that continued well into 2014."
As the group looked at the current pipeline of manufacturing programs in the region they recognized that a gap existed, John Beauregard, executive director of the Eastern Connecticut Workforce Investment Board, told attendees.
"The gap existed for us with adults," Beauregard said. "We had some very robust education and training approaches in manufacturing but as we were dealing with some of our American Job Center folks who were dealing with unemployment we realized that we didn't have a quick enough option for them to get the manufacturing training that they needed to return to work."
So the initiative group designed an intensive 10-week program for these adults. The program reflects efforts to rebuild the manufacturing supply chain to meet demand.
"We have an opportunity to create pathways to true careers for hundreds and hundreds of eastern Connecticut residents as a result of the growth in manufacturing, particularly here at Electric Boat," Beauregard said.
Thursday's discussion came on the heels of congressional passage of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which amended the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. The legislation represents the first update to job training law since Bill Clinton was president, according to Courtney.
"We again are going to have that super highway for the workforce of the future," said Courtney, who worked closely on the legislation as a member of the House Education and Workforce Committee.
"One of the key underpinnings" of the legislation, Murphy said, "is a recognition that employers have to drive the skills that are being taught at our colleges and our secondary schools, and that's exactly what is behind this partnership....
"Electric Boat (is) doing a direct coordinated program with the Workforce Investment Board that is at the heart of what is allowed through new flexibility for states in the Workforce Investment Act."
While the legislation was bipartisan, funding it has become a partisan issue. "This is really about funding in the end," said Murphy, a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee.
"We're having a fight in Washington over how much money we're going to spend for workforce investment and job training," Murphy said. "We are living under the Budget Control Act, which caps the amount of money we can spend on workforce training. Many of us are working hard to lift those caps so that we can spend more money on the programs that will benefit eastern Connecticut."
Blumenthal was one of a number of Senate Democrats who wrote a letter to Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of the subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., the ranking Democrat, asking for funding for the various workforce initiatives in President Barack Obama's 2016 fiscal year budget request.
Blumenthal said he and his colleagues are asking for $200 million for the American Technical Training Fund, to expand technical training programs to meet employer needs, and $100 million for the American Apprenticeship Grants Program, which allows public-private partnerships to apply for grants for apprentice training programs.
"We're not talking about hundreds of billions of dollars. We're talking about very manageable amounts of funding that are tremendously cost effective," Blumenthal said.
Perez also pushed for scaling up these investments, which Obama is proposing in his budget request for the 2016 fiscal year.
"Part of the unfinished business of this recovery is there are still too many people who are long-term unemployed, far less than there were a year ago, less than there were two years ago, but far too many," Perez said.
Perez called the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act "a bipartisan blueprint" and said it "has all of the foundational elements for us to succeed, and now we have to scale it out."
j.bergman@theday.com
Twitter: @JuliaSBergman
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