Washington Electricians Team Up to Bring the Hungry More Than Food

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Dave McCord, a 25-year member of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, is bringing his passions for riding bicycles and changing lives together. As the director of the IBEW Local 26 Joint Apprenticeship and Training Committee (JATC), McCord (below at left) joined other electricians and union-organized contractors last April on a bike ride in Southern Maryland to benefit End Hunger in Calvert County. Eager to do more to support the non-profit’s mission of “getting to the root causes of local hunger and helping equip people to self-sufficiency,” McCord and JATC assistant director Ralph Neidert got Local 26 on board to offer  electrical training to residents, helping put them on a path to good jobs. The union’s goal, says McCord, is to quickly prepare applicants to go to work for union contractors as residential electrician trainees and give them the tools to help them apply for the local’s five-year apprenticeship program. “The electrical trade is a great profession” that will help Calvert residents gain self-sufficiency, said Mary LaBorie, the life-skills program manager at End Hunger in Calvert County who helped plan the partnership.  “The program is a fantastic opportunity,” added Nancy Stange, a 24-year-old who had been out of work six months and was cleaning houses to make ends meet. “It’s almost too good to be true.” Local 26 also actively supports the Community Services Agency’s Building Futures program by taking some of its low-income program graduates as pre-apprentices and helpers, a great entry into the trades. Local 26 was recently honored by the US Department of Labor as a “trailblazer and innovator” for helping District residents get work on local projects and work to qualify for apprenticeship training (“DOL Secretary Commends Local Apprenticeship Programs,” UC 8/14/2012). “Brotherhood goes far beyond the rank and file of the IBEW and many times we lose sight of that,” says McCord. “We are about helping those that need help, in so many ways.” - excerpted from a longer report on the IBEW website; photos of electrical class, McCord courtesy of Local 26