HEBRON, Ky. — An apprenticeship program in northern Kentucky is trying to address the shortage of construction workers. One apprentice said it’s been a life-changing experience, and he can’t wait to help shape the skyline of the region.
Anthony Cooper is proof that it’s never too late to get started on something new. That’s, of course, a lot easier with a little help.
Slicing through solid iron is a lot different from the path he was on, and Cooper said he couldn’t be happier about it.
“They pushed college on us really hard. So after the military I did some college. Outside of the debt and just the muddled job world, I was really looking for something. I needed a change,” he said. “I couldn’t keep doing what I was doing. That path had to stop. So I came here, tested in, and they were good enough to me to really bring me in. They’re training me. They’re bringing me up.”
Cooper is about to wrap up his first year as an apprentice with Iron Workers Local 44 in Hebron. It’s an earn-as-you-learn four-year program in which students get hands-on experience. The four major facets of the trade are ornamental and glasswork, structural steel erection, reinforcing iron work, and machinery moving and rigging.
“It’s like you’re part of something here. You know, it’s bigger than you. We get to build some of the biggest buildings in the area,” said Jarrod Tiemeier, business agent organizer for Local 44. “Everybody around here drives over our roads, drives across our bridges, work in our buildings. You know, we’re needed, and that’s a great feeling.”
At 44 years old, maybe it was destined for Cooper to end up with Local 44 as well. He is, however, one of the older apprentices. But he said his age has been an asset.
“They’re gonna get a little bit of experience from the things that I’ve gone through. So I like that a lot,” Cooper said. “I am gobbling this up. This is a thing that hadn’t been given to me since I got out of the service.”
Rob Barker, apprenticeship coordinator with Local 44, said it’s a good thing people like Cooper are willing to put in the training necessary to enter a workforce that needs them.
“There is going to be a manpower shortage in the Cincinnati area with all the upcoming work that we have,” Barker said.
Barker is going into his 24th year with the union, which itself is in its 119th year.
“We change the skyline in cities. You can look at the city of Cincinnati, and see that the skyline is sometimes ever changing, and that has to do with us. We built the city,” he said. “When you can see that they get the sense of pride that we have as iron workers to build something and to change the skyline, to know that you’ve actually had a part in the way that city looks, it’s very prideful for us.”
Barker said when students graduate as journeyman ironworkers, they’re set up to make good money right away. As for what kind of jobs Cooper is looking forward to, he isn’t going to be picky.
“I’m going to do everything. When jobs become available, I don’t turn them away,” he said. “You’ll be working high. You’ll be working over water. You work in the elements. You do all of these things that none of my other jobs ever really required of me to do. But each new challenge that I complete just shows me: here’s another thing that I can do.”
As someone who is now proudly pro-union, when Cooper isn’t honing his skills, he’s encouraging other people like him to sign up.
“I do it every day. Everywhere I go, I am a union ironworker. I talk to people at grocery stores, I talk to people at churches, I talk to people in my community,” he said.
Local 44 said with the Brent Spence Bridge corridor project coming up, there will be a need for thousands of construction workers over the next several years in northern Kentucky and Cincinnati.