This application is submitted in response to the request for application, RFA-ES-14-008, Hazardous Materials Worker Health and Safety Training (U45), for a Cooperative Agreement to support the development of model programs for training and educating workers engaged in activities related to hazardous materials and waste generation, removal, containment, transportation and emergency response for the Environmental Careers Worker Training Program (ECWTP). CPWR ? The Center for Construction Research and Training (CPWR) is the 501(c)(3) non-profit construction safety and health research and training arm of the North America?s Building Trades Unions, AFL-CIO, (BCTD). CPWR submits this application in coordination and cooperation with a training consortium of 11 international/national building trades unions representing workers engaged in hazardous waste work at designated 1910.120 sites around the country and in other environmentally hazardous work assignments. A listing of these unions is included in the Overall Specific Aims section of this application. Letters of Support from the General President of each of the 11 building trades unions comprising our training consortium are included in the Overall Letters of Support section of this application. In this application we propose to maintain and strengthen existing partnerships with community-based organizations and state and local Building Trades Councils to continue ECWTPs in the following three cities: East Palo Alto, CA, in partnership with JobTrain; New Orleans, LA, in partnership with the Central South Carpenters Regional Council Training Trust; and St. Paul, MN, in partnership with the Minnesota State Building and Construction Trades Council.
Our Specific Aims are to: 1. Train and provide over a five-year period 300 program eligible residents in our three targeted communities with opportunities to become engaged in meaningful, long-term careers in the communities? economic redevelopment either as environmental remediation or general construction workers. 2. Develop new partnerships and maintain existing formal arrangements with general construction and environmental cleanup contractors, to complement existing collaborators; and other local community- based organizations, our training consortium?s local union affiliates and apprenticeship training centers, local governmental agencies and local community colleges, to ensure trainees receive holistic supportive services to help them become self-sufficient, employable job candidates. 3. Conduct three multi-year external, third-party evaluations over the five-year period.
The relevance of this proposal on public health is for the construction worker population to become a safer and healthier collective group. A safer, healthier construction worker collective population can reduce the number of injuries and fatalities to workers which bring hardship to their families, communities and employers.
