Daren Bacon has always been someone who enjoys physical labor. After completing a stint in the military, he wanted to continue working in a physically challenging job. He asked a few people who worked in construction how to enter the industry. Their responses were less than helpful, he said. “They didn’t want to provide me with the information,” Bacon said.
Around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, a friend told him about a program that may help. The friend didn’t know much about it, but Bacon figured he’d give it a try.
After a six-week training, where Bacon said he learned the basics of construction, he graduated and found his first construction job in three months.
The program is L.E.E.P’s Pathways to Apprenticeship, commonly referred to as P2A, a statewide pre-apprenticeship designed to prepare job seekers for union careers in skilled trades.
A promise of a union career and pay
L.E.E.P. stands for Labor Economics Education emPowerment. Executive Director Gwenevere Motley described Pathways to Apprenticeship as a workforce development program providing direct entry into union careers.
“We are not a training-to-nowhere [program],” Motley said. “[Program graduates] are going directly into a union apprenticeship career.” She said that is not the only distinction between L.E.E.P.’s pre-apprenticeship program and other trade training programs. The Pathways to Apprenticeship not only offers a certificate of achievement but also provides “resources and wraparound services that they need to succeed when they go into union apprenticeship,” Motley said.
Those resources and wraparound services encompass mental health, business etiquette and household financial management.
Participants have been placed in three different unions with the goal to place those who complete the course in all 23 unions throughout the state, Motley said.
Organization leaders said since their founding in 2019, 123 participants have graduated from the program, including 15 who just graduated Friday.
An entry into the middle class
The program targets recruitment from lower-income communities and is open to all community members including:
- Formerly incarcerated and other justice-involved individuals
- People on public assistance
- People who live in public housing
The program doesn’t focus on participants’ backgrounds as much being that it is focused on giving access to jobs that pay middle-class income to those who want them, Motley said.
Motley explained that the impact of achieving middle class reverberates throughout a community. When people have the ability to afford to take care of their family and friends, they are less likely to become incarcerated.
According to Talent.com, the average median salary for a labor union member in Delaware is $55,302 a year, versus the average median salary of $37,052 for a non-union worker.
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L.E.E.P. leaders said that while the opportunity to enter the program is open to all, it comes with one major stipulation: Participants must be willing to put in the work to achieve the program objectives.
Bacon echoed that guidance. He said participants benefit if they put effort into their achievement, and he cautioned against thinking the program is an easy way to get into skilled trade jobs. Two months after he landed his first construction job, it ended. But three months later, he attained a second job and has held that job for the last two years.
Reporter Anitra Johnson’s work focuses on actions taken to change, improve, and give back to communities in distress. Contact her at ajohnson@delawareonline.com or 302-379-5786 with tips and story ideas. Follow her on her Facebook page.
