Missouri DOT Joins Labor and Management to Build Road Project�s Diverse Craft Force
The Missouri Dept. of Transportation and a union-management group in St. Louis have embarked on a new effort set to bolster craft labor on the $535-million program to rebuild Interstate-64 in the city’s downtown, and to ensure that the work force recruited and trained reflects local demographics.
MoDOT is spending about $2.5 million for the program, launched earlier this month. Participants say it is the first major diversity-related employment and training effort in the state. PRIDE of St. Louis Inc., the region’s 35-year-old labor-management group, won the contract to run the program. It involves $1.5 million to train about 240 women and minority pre-apprentices for heavy-highway work, and likely for other trades. MoDOT also has committed another $1 million in placement incentives for contractors. Workers will join the projected 500-person I-64 labor force, which will reconstruct 10.5 miles of the Interstate over the next four years (ENR 12/4/06 p. 16).