Campout For Union Apprenticeships

By Linda Schmidt 

For almost a week, hundreds of people have been camping out in Queens for the chance to get a job.

The campers are outside the training offices of Ironworkers Local 46 in the Woodside section. They started lining up earlier this week to apply for just 50 apprenticeships.

The line stretches down the block and wraps all the way around the office building.   Most of the men and women have been here since Tuesday wrapped in blankets and sleeping in tents all for a shot at getting a job.

Vanglahn, along with about 500 other people, has been sleeping on the sidewalk looking to apply for the union’s 50 apprentice positions. He’s been out of work for about eight months.

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Reposting from CBS News:  “Apprentices – like those at Boston’s Sheet Metal Workers Union Local Seventeen training center – spend 200 hours in the classroom and 1,800 hours per year working for local companies. It takes five years. They get annual pay raises and the union pays for the training, so it doesn’t cost them a penny.”

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