Bill --
Don't apologize for asking these questions! They are exactly the questions that
I am thinking about too -- (close enough, at any rate.)
You can't IMAGINE how hard it is to arrange thngs so that another person can get
involved with these questions. There is a certain amount of stuff written about
apprenticeship programs (I think I've cited it in the paper for the most part).
Mostly, it focuses on apprenticeship programs in isolation and attempts to
quantify one aspect of their functioning -- acceptance rates of women and
minorities, retention, etc. One set of quite good work is of Cihan Bilginsoy
from Utah, a labor economist who has analyzed the retention of women and
minorities in union app. programs up through 1995, based on national data. I am
going to argue that what AT does for me with regard to this experience (I'm
talking about the past year and a half working with Building Bridges) is lay out
more than just one element of the picture in an overview that is convincing
enough to engage someone else in exactly the questioning process that you have
begun. You are showing me that if I draw this picture this way I can get
someone else to respond by asking questions like, "If the church parishioners
had better jobs, would the churches fare better?"
What's hidden here is my choices about what belongs in which activity system.
It's my choice, for example, to separate the teachers and the churches, the
community and the non-union contrators. Someone could argue with that.
(Example: in the last 20 years there has been a lot of research about the
impact of new work organization -- teams, etc -- does it result in a better
product? Can it save an industry like apparel -- men's suits -- that used to be
part of the manufacturing backbone of the US and is now almost entirely
overseas? Do people who work in re-organized plants do better, make more money,
benefit from reorganization themselves? There's one particular book that was the
result of a large study called "Manufacturing Advantage," that says that workers
in reorganized plants DO make more money. I would argue that if AT had been
used to lay out the systems in the original plan of research, it would have been
clear that owners were in a different system (had different rules, different
resources, different goals) than the workers and that it was a mistake not to
separate these and look at them separately More on this elsewhere, if someone is
interested.)
But that's the level on which I'd expect someone to challenge this project --
I'd expect them to say, "You're suggesting that the minority caucuses within
unions are really at odds in some ways with the unions -- I don't see how you
can substantiate that." Or:"Look, the Hispanic contractors who use community
members as workers are really acting a patron, not as super-exploiters; who else
will give these people a job, when they don't even speak English? " That would
make an argument.
Your questions, to me, are echoes of my own questions -- of things that we want
to look at as this project rolls along.
Right now what we're trying to do is find some $ to actually pay the teachers.
We've got a church over near a big Chicago housing project that is willing to
host a BB class but is looking for $2,500 to pay the teacher, buy books, and
support overhead. I'm sure we could get other classes up for $1,500 if the
churches were willing to eat the overhead.
And we have convened a couple of meetings of union folks with community
development corporations. The evidence in the meetings (evidence here being
people asking each other questions) that these groups really do not have much
history of talking to each other is enormous. So the meeting itself is a site
of "labor education" -- although it doesn't present itself as anything like a
class.
It's a great pleasure to actually be able to talk with someone about this
project!!! Not to put too sharp an edge on it, but -- one of the downsides of
being a single parent is not having someone to talk to about your kid;
similarly, one of the downsides of using AT to look at a complex project through
is not having someone to talk to about what you see -- so thanks!
Helena
Bill Barowy wrote:
> First of all Helena, let me say that this response is made without reading
> those of the others, so there may be redundancies or disagreements with what
> has been written earlier. Second, the work you have taken on is incredibly
> complex, involving at least the 11 systems you outlined (I counted the
> contractors) -- and most likely within several of those systems others could
> well be further identified, -- this may be analytically important (tho i'm
> only guessing) should internal tensions, say, in one system be more readily
> explicated as tensions between systems. And you bring in that it is not just
> the way things are now that make the situation difficult -- it is the way
> things have become, over many years, and with the traces of many other
> systems (i.e. The WIA and the CRA) that shape how decisions are made by
> people today. I took a look at the wia on the web, and it is not easy to
> grok with a quick read. It would be interesting to see how something like
> this, which shapes activity systemically, is interpreted and acted upon
> locally-- how much does it actually penetrate into any system of activity or
> is does it act more as a backdrop?
>
> The thread I am mainly drawn into, however, is that of the trajectories for
> those individuals who move through bb to apprenticeship and then on to a
> union trade. So for example,
>
> "Success. The graduate is working in a unionized building trades job either
> as a journeyman or as an apprentice, or else is progressing normally through
> the testing and enrollment process, having passed the initial test. Sometimes
> "progressing normally" means waiting, possibly up to a year. Out of 49, 15
> graduates fit in this category."
>
> I'm wondering what this story looks like for someone --how do they deal with
> the problems of race and needed skills for the workplace? Do they find the
> maths and blueprint reading they learn in the 11 week course to be relevant
> to the work they do? Do they instead find more relevant the stories the
> mentors have told of racist actions? It is the focus you state at the
> beginning: "we are looking at access: the transition from the Building
> Bridges math classes into the apprenticeship programs." And, of course, the
> flip side, the stories of one who does not make it, could be equally
> compelling.
>
> As part of the greater clarification, I guess i'd like to see more of the
> dense interactions suggested by the venn-like diagram, clustering around 5->2
> and 5->a, both mediated by 3.
>
> For example, there is the contradiction in race diversity in the trades, 1)
> that the trades are not diverse enough to win contracts in minority
> communities-- instead these contracts are going to sweatshops (there is also
> an economic reason here) , but 2) continuing racism is a barrier to the
> apprenticeship of more minorities. This is a contradiction internal to the
> trades system, that it, of its own accord, cannot solve. Yet, with
> assignments being made for apprenticeships, that offer the flow of minorities
> into the trade, leading to the spread of diversity, as you point out,
> minority caucuses ensured "that cancellations were made without prejudice",
> potentially maximizing the 'seeding' of minorities into the trade unions, and
> accomplishing what the unions alone cannot do. I'd like to see more explicit
> this manner in which one system mediates the internal contradictions of
> another.
>
> The final thing that is systemic, that i'd like to see more about is
> addressing the economic contraints as a thread in the writing - not only how
> the trades and apprenticeship programs are affected by available jobs, but
> how some churches also turn to sweatshop operations to meet their financial
> goals. In my gut, I feel that there must be some strong tensions and problems
> here. Are there really contradictions here? If church parishioners had
> better jobs, would the churches fair better?
>
> Anyway -- sorry for asking so many questions -- but it seems the complex
> nature of what you and your colleagues are taking on just leads in that
> direction.
>
> bb
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