Priority Hire

Eddie Grinnell has been continuing to hit the streets to find people interested in well-paid trade jobs. The city’s Priority Hire program is meant to ensure that people in the 98118 have access to the jobs created by the City’s construction projects, and Eddie makes sure residents have the skills necessary to get those jobs. Once someone has chosen a trade (electrician, carpenter, cement mason, welder, plumber, flagger, etc), Eddie connects them with a corresponding 11-week, unpaid pre-apprenticeship program. Once that is completed, he helps future tradesmen and women get paid apprenticeships, lasting 3-5 years and paying $24-$28 an hour. Then, he helps them complete the process by assisting 98118’s newest tradespeople in finding union jobs or journeymen carpentry jobs. 

The latest:

One thing Eddie’s working on lately is getting more women from the South End into well-paid construction jobs. He’s begun to promote these jobs, and is supported by a Priority Hire initiative. Coming up Eddie will be organizing a women’s construction job fair.

Eddie also wants to shout out Wayne Smith who is one of the program coordinators at the Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training (PACT) program. Eddie says, “Wayne is one that really gave me the information on helping people that graduated from the training course that had been away but still have the certification.” Instead of having to take the whole course over again, future carpenters can go to where their course was held, provide proof of completion, and get recertified.