Columbus workers required for city projects
Columbus COLUMBUS —
Mayor Andrew J. Ginther’s administration is testing a new plan that it says will boost the number of people pursuing trade apprenticeships, while it also sets benchmarks for local workers on public construction projects.
The “community-benefits agreement” between the city and the Columbus Building & Construction Trades Council, AFL-CIO, will cover work done on the city’s planned new fire station No. 35, to be built on the Far East Side.
Work on the $8 million project is scheduled to begin in May 2018. The 22,000-square-foot station will have room for a medic vehicle, engine and ladder truck, plus living quarters, training rooms and a workout area. The city has yet to select a contractor.
When the city solicits bids for the project, contractors will have to account for the agreement, but Ginther’s senior policy adviser, Bryan Clark, said “You don’t have to be a union shop to get this job.”
The 14-page document spells out goals for ensuring that a portion of the work is done by residents of Columbus, Franklin County and other contiguous counties. It also requires the trades council to host apprenticeship-recruitment fairs and to charge its members 5 cents per hour worked, to be deposited into a scholarship fund for apprenticeship programs.
Ginther plans to announce the agreement at a news conference Tuesday, along with scholarship seed funding, money for middle-school exposure to trades, and a plan to work with schools.
“I think the win for (the unions) is the opportunity to grow the building-trades workforce,” Clark said. “The win for us is these are folks who have jobs for a lifetime.”
The agreement establishes goals that 25 percent of work on the firehouse would be done by residents of Franklin County and the contiguous counties, and 20 percent of the work would be done by Columbus residents.