Ready Workforce
Training & Education
Each of the Local Unions of the Rhode Island Building & Construction Trades Council and their signatory contractors have established joint labor/management training committees to recruit, develop, and train the skilled craftsmen and women that the marketplace demands. These committees have training trust funds that are 100% privately funded though collective bargaining.
Our unique and unmatched investment in training allows our contractors to provide the best available training in the industry. Our focus is not geared towards just meeting minimum regulatory and licensing requirements. Rather, it is geared towards making our craftsmen and women the most highly skilled in the construction industry.
Apprenticeship
Through union apprenticeship programs, our contractors cultivate new craftsmen and women. These new entrants receive supervised training on the job and related classroom instruction under the tutelage of union master craftsmen and women anywhere from 3 to 5 years, depending on the craft. Sponsoring joint apprenticeship training trusts pay the cost of apprentices’ instruction.
Journeyman Training
Our commitment to training does not end upon completion of an apprenticeship. Our training funds provide ongoing skills improvement via classroom instruction at various state of the art training centers across the state to ensure that our members are consistently immersed in the latest innovative techniques and technologies available in the construction industry.
Safety & Health Training
On the job safety is an integral part of our members’ skills training. Rigorous safety and health courses for all members enable our craftsmen to avoid hazards and injury saving our contractors millions of dollars in insurance premiums and related costs. As a result, our workforce works safer, and we have the statistics to prove it.
Joint Labor-Management Funds
Multi-Employer – Pension, Health & Welfare, Training, Health & Safety
A multiemployer benefit trust fund is a health fund that is created solely for the benefit of collectively bargained employees working for many employers. The fund is maintained pursuant to a trust agreement and one or more collective bargaining agreements. Employers negotiate the fund into the applicable collective bargaining agreement and agree to contribute to the fund at certain specified rates for the benefit plans that are negotiated (medical, dental, vision, etc.).
Multiemployer benefit trust funds are typically sponsored and administered by joint boards of both labor and management trustees representing participants from many organizations, usually within the same or related industries, and a labor union.
Because multiple employers contribute to the fund for their employees, the costs are shared and the risks are pooled. As a result, multiemployer plans can provide a competitive benefit for the same or better rate when compared to a single employer health plan. And since multiple employers participate in the same fund, employees can move among participating employers without losing coverage, although their benefit plans may differ based on each employer's collective bargaining agreement.
Other types of joint labor-management funds also exist such as pension, training, health & safety, and labor-management cooperation.
In short, each union trade has it’s own Training funds that are particular to the craft, skills and jurisdiction they represent. Employers and union representatives work together to meet the training needs of journeymen and apprentices alike. Training courses are free to the member.
Pension plans are governed in the same manner with a board that is usually split evenly between labor and management trustees. They decide together on management companies and oversee the plans. Health & Safety Funds are set up with the idea that working together, employers and employee unions can identify risk factors and eliminate them in the workplace thereby reducing workplace accidents and insurance costs.
More Work Opportunties
Our joint labor-management funds work together on industry issues, such as prevailing wage laws, misclassification of employees, infrastructure funding and other issues that affect both labor and management. They also work together to market Union signatory contractors to increase their market share and in turn work opportunities for members.
