...to AFL-CIO apprenticeship programs, which have experienced a decline in recent years. “Wages have been depressed, especially in the south, so no one has been able to recruit to the industry,” Lujan says. “Very few people here know what a boilermaker is, but we need 5,000 boilermakers right now, today. We are interested in improving wages and benefits with construction.”

Angelle Bergeron/ENR John. W. Cowherd Sr., plasterers' union international field representative, gets down and dirty with students about concrete work. "It’s a hard work. It¹s a trade of choice. You’ve got to want to do it."

Nationwide, the construction industry’s workforce shortage stems from a combination of factors—natural attrition of the existing workforce, a failure to attract new people to the industry, aging infrastructure and major capital programs. “It was like that before the [2005] storms, but they just made it worse,” says Kenneth Naquin, CEO of Louisiana Associated General Contractors. “In Louisiana, we need 90,000 workers by 2009. We need all trades.”

Although the union used to have a stronger presence in Louisiana, “since right-to-work [legislation], there has been a definite decline in wages and benefits,” says Morty Branighan Jr., director of the local Electrical Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee. “We just aren't keeping pace with the rest of the country.” Katrina further accelerated the falloff. “We lost 30 to 40% of our apprentices because they had to move and haven't returned,” Branighan says. Indeed, all of the local trades experienced similar losses, as well as having their hiring halls and training facilities destroyed by floodwaters. “I could probably put 25 or 30 electricians to work tomorrow if I had them,” Branighan says. “Our contractors aren't calling as often because they understand we don't have the people to send out anymore, and it's the same across the craft lines. We just can't get people.”

Angelle Bergeron/ENR Student TaRyan Theophile: "I need a job with security, and I need a change in my life. I need to look forward to the future."

The problem is further exacerbated by inflated wages being paid by out-of-state contractors, say local union leaders. Andy O' Brien, a training director with Local 53 of the heat & frost insulators & asbestos workers union referred to “carpetbaggers” who he claims have flocked to the area to make quick money and exploit workers. “We don't train for the money,” he says. “We train for the industry.”

Even if the program meets the 675-graduate goal in three years, “it's just a drop in the bucket of what we need,” Naquin says, noting new union efforts as well as nonunion training programs such as the Business Roundtable’s “I'm GREAT” campaign linked to the Gulf Coast Workforce Initiative. “Certainly making wages attractive and offering training are important,” Naquin says, but he doesn't see any resolution “until we get everyone together, union and non-union, to talk about their needs and what we are doing, and decide they are willing to invest the money.”

But economic development officials says the center is a step in the right direction. “You hear that all the time that whatever we do for Louisiana workforce at this time is a drop in the bucket,” says John Stewart, manager of the state’s $38-million workforce training grant program. “It may be, but we've got to start somewhere. We've got to get moving. If you generate 300 welders this year, does that cover the need? No. But that's 300 more welders than we had before, and they are 300 Louisiana welders.”