The Greater Kansas City Construction Laborers Training Fund stopped classes as soon as the social distancing request from the states of Kansas and Missouri came into effect. Training fund board members stopped training for most of the trades. How would classes be held if the class sizes had to be reduced? How would on-the-job training take place at a distance?
Then LiUNA reframed the question: What can we do to help during this time?
A campaign was developed to build from the Infectious Disease Control/Hazardous Material training program, to focus on cleaning for COVID-19 according to CDC guidelines regarding the disease. Two classes were built – a 40-hour class for contractors, like JE Dunn who wanted to train people who did not have a background in the infectious disease training. And a 4-hour class with no hands-on aspect for those may have trained in HAZMAT and disease control, but who needed the specifics on cleaning for COVID-19.
Donald Slack, Training Director for the Greater Kansas City Construction Laborers Fund, said, “The plan we developed had 30 hours of classroom training, plus 6 hours of a controlled action plan. The remaining hours include hands-on virtual training via Zoom conferencing. We overnighted all the supplies, manuals, pencils, paper, markers, buckets…”
“So far we spent $4,000 for materials and mailings. We have trained 43 people so far, with more interested.” Laborers in Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota are also participating in this program.
“We trained JE Dunn’s project managers and estimators,” said Slack. They plan on replicating this program internally to teach others for their job sites.
The Infectious Disease Control training program was developed for Laborers working in hospital settings or nursing homes where patients could be present. The goal was to reduce the spread of illness as much as possible. The COVID-19 training centers on using CDC-approved cleaning solutions and protecting yourself and your co-workers with proper PPE and correct procedure.
Laborers are always finding ways to help and add value to the project. Contact us today to see how we can help you.