Milwaukee receives new 'workforce hub' status that will speed lead pipe removal efforts

When it comes to job creation and resources, Milwaukee has a direct connection to the Biden administration after being labeled a “workforce hub.”

Milwaukee is one of 12 cities with the designation and it will allow the city to work with the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Transportation to speed up the timeline to remove lead pipes.

“It’s a project that will take more than a decade to accomplish, here in Milwaukee at least,” Mayor Cavalier Johnson said.

The original projection to replace the lead pipes was 60 years and the Biden administration is allocating $83 million to address lead pipes in Milwaukee.  

“Those lines are not going to come out of the ground on their own, it takes people to actually do that work,” Johnson said. “In order to have the people to take those lines out of the ground, they have to have a career opportunity ... where they know about the chance to do that.”

On Wednesday, Acting Labor Secretary Julie Su met with Johnson and Oak Creek Mayor Daniel Bukiewicz, who is also president of the Milwaukee Building Trades Council, to talk about the importance of boosting training opportunities for the building trades.

“We are all in on job creation; we’re all in on making sure those are good jobs and the mayor is helping lead the way,” Su said, adding that the designation is intended to help Milwaukee-area job seekers get connected to jobs and training.

“Making sure that organizations that have been serving those communities also have a seat at the table as we build out strong infrastructure that connects people to jobs to help meet employer needs and also create real opportunity.”

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Secretary Amy Pechacek and officials from Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership/BIG STEP also participated in a closed-door meeting with Su.

In recent years WRTP/BIG STEP has gotten the attention of the Biden administration for its efforts to train and place workers in Milwaukee.

In January, the Department of Labor announced it was providing the organization with $1.5 million to modernize and upgrade the facility.

Carshella Porter is now a labor apprentice after graduating from WRTP/BIG STEP.

“If it wasn’t for them it would have been really hard for me to get into construction because I didn’t have any construction experience,” Porter said. “This program helped me take the test as needed to get into construction.”

Sheet metal worker Dwayne Sampson Jr. said he was “going down a different path” when WRTP/BIG STEP visited his high school, Milwaukee Academy of Science, twice.

“That program introduced me to things I never saw,” Sampson said. “This program is very life changing. I hope it gets more young men like me an opportunity to change their family’s life.”

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: New job training effort will accelerate Milwaukee lead pipe removal