U.S. labor secretary praises Phila. trade school program

[Omaha Steve]

X post in Labor.


By Jane M. Von Bergen, Inquirer Staff Writer
POSTED: May 23, 2014

Maybe it was because painting apprentice Natalie Holzer told U.S. Labor Secretary Thomas E. Perez that Perez was a natural on the spray-painting training simulator (even though he really wasn't that good), that Holzer was singled out as an example of the message the secretary was trying to send to America.

But probably not.

"We need to do a better job of marketing," Perez told a group of 200 building trades apprentices, contractors, and union officials gathered Wednesday at the Finishing Trades Institute in Northeast Philadelphia - a school run by the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades and the contractors that hire union painters, glaziers, and wall-finishers.

Parents, guidance counselors, and teachers need to know that not every young person should be shoved into college, he said, and that "there is a bright future for people who work with their hands."

FULL story at link.

[SamKnause]

1. I think working with one's hands is a noble profession.

Manual labor is not valued in this country.

If you can't move money from point A to point B, and make a profit, you are of no value in the U.S.

Everything in this country is ass backwards.

[yallerdawg]

2. This is where small business comes from

People need to know how to do things, and come together in a craft.

A contractor can assemble a wide variety of craftsman who can make, fix and do everything we see around us. Can keep our equipment operating. Can develop the innovative ideas we need for technological advancement.

Every project may have 1 engineer. 1 accountant. 1 CEO. But it is 100's of people who do the actual work.

The CEO, the engineer, the accountant -- they did not build that. We did.