The Skilled Trades Diversity Consortium, which has been working to establish goals for addressing diversity within the skilled trades doing work in Tompkins County, held its annual meeting Jan. 12 at Tompkins County Library.
The consortium, which began meeting annually in 2000, includes local union officials and contractors committed to increasing the diversity of their workforces, city and county officials, community agency members and members of the Cornell administration.
The Skilled Trades Diversity Consortium has focused on the important infrastructure for implementing affirmative action and increased diversity within the skilled trades. During the consortium's inaugural meeting in December 2000, discussions involved developing a more-uniform system for collecting contractors' mandated affirmative action reports. One result from the meeting, say Cornell officials, is that changes were completed this past summer to make it easier to review the affirmative action reports from contractors working on campus.
At the January 2002 session, Ralph Thaman Jr., vice chancellor for facilities management and planning at Washington University in St. Louis, spoke about his university's diversity efforts and best practices. Cornell officials had follow-up discussions with Thaman, out of which came a revision of Cornell's contractor pre-qualification package.
During the January 2003 meeting, Frank Daniel, executive director of the Buffalo Building Trades Development Partnership, addressed the consortium, and two groups were formed to develop long-term objectives for increasing diversity in the skilled trades through pipeline programs and marketing the skilled trades as a career to young people, with a particular focus on underrepresented populations. One development has been the further exploration of other pre-apprentice training programs within our region to determine the best model for the Tompkins-Cortland Building trades. Additionally the Tompkins-Cortland Building Trades Council with the assistance of Cornell University created and distributed a brochure that provides an overview of each trade, apprenticeship requirements and local contact information.
During the consortium's January 2004 meeting, past objectives were reviewed and participants took part in facilitated discussions on long-term strategic objectives for increasing the representation of women and people of color within the skilled trades professions. Priorities were established for 2004-05 and include the development of a pre-apprentice training program, targeted marketing strategies for recruitment and the development of retention initiatives for women and people of color. A subcommittee has been convened for the 2004-05 year and progress toward these initiatives already is under way.
| Cornell Chronicle Front Page | | Table of Contents | | Cornell News Service Home Page |