A nonprofit labor-training organization has gotten another $187,000 in federal funds — on top of $5.5 million received in June — to train dozens of Connecticut workers for jobs in the energy-efficiency and green-construction industry, authorities said.
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The grant is from the U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Congressman Joe Courtney’s office says.
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LIUNA Training and Education Fund, an arm of the Laborers’ international Union of North America, will focus its training on the jobless and underemployed, Courtney said.
Specifically, LIUNA’s New England Laborers’ Training Trust Fund, with offices in Pomfret and Hopkinton, Mass., will provide training to demolition/deconstruction workers who work in the renovation/retrofit and construction resource reclamation sectors of the green construction industry, the congressman said. Skills include cutting and burning and pneumatic tool safety.Â
In June, the New England training operation got a $5.5 million grant from the federal Labor Department for similar training. The New London arm of the Connecticut Green Jobs Funnel Initiative also secured funding in June to train workers for jobs in green construction, according to Courtney’s homepage.
It was unclear precisely how many Connecticut workers will be retrained with the two federal grants. The New England training director was said to be out of town and unavailable for comment Friday.
The training program’s primary goal is to provide training that helps participants obtain living wage jobs with career growth opportunities, Courtney said.
“Investing in construction and the building trades sector has the dual-impact of immediate job growth and long-term infrastructure improvements,” he said in a statement.
