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Cleveland RTA Partners with DOL, Education Institutions; Program Supports Skilled Workforce
Special from Greater Cleveland RTA
“In a year where collaboration is taking center stage, it is great to see the collaborative efforts of two federal agencies, labor unions and some of the finest educational institutions in the country produce successes like we are seeing in Cleveland,” said APTA Chair Valarie J. McCall, a member of the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (RTA) Board of Trustees.
That success is translating into jobs, and U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) Secretary Tom Perez visited RTA and Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C) on Nov. 2 and participated in a roundtable discussion on workforce development for front-line positions. His visit launched a week-long tour recognizing National Apprenticeship Week, Perez noted in the DOL blog.
Like many other public transit agencies, RTA is facing a wave of retirements among skilled workers. That’s why the system is kicking off a standards-based training and apprenticeship program funded by a $400,000 FTA Innovative Workforce Development Grant, including partnerships with Tri-C, Cleveland State University and El Barrio Workforce Development Center.
Joining McCall and Perez on the roundtable were RTA Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Joe Calabrese, FTA Senior Advisor Carolyn Flowers and representatives of the Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) and the Transportation Learning Center (TLC).
"These collaborative efforts help improve the readiness of potential future employees to enter these technical apprenticeships and careers,” McCall said, “and they help expand employment opportunities for disadvantaged populations, veterans and women.”
Calabrese, also TLC board secretary, said, “Standards-based apprenticeship training systems can bring along the next generation of skilled technicians that we urgently need.”
He cited new DOT studies showing that the public transit industry will need to hire and train new workers equivalent to 126 percent of today’s total workforce over the next 10 years. That means RTA will need to hire more than 30 electricians and mechanics and more than 200 bus and rail operators within the next year.
“Apprenticeships are essential to our ability to meet this workforce challenge,” Calabrese said. “Partnerships with community colleges and career and technical high school programs help expand the pipeline of qualified applicants for entry-level workers.”
TLC Executive Director Jack Clark emphasized cost-effectiveness in these new apprenticeship programs. “When the industry develops new standards-based training, 20 agencies can share the cost and grants from the Federal Transit Administration provide matching dollars to agency contributions. So each agency is paying only one-fortieth of the total cost,” Clark said during the event.
In addition to APTA, sponsors of the TLC program include ATU, the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen and the Community Transportation Association of America.
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