Manufacturing Core Curriculum
The AFL-CIO Working for America Institute (WAI) is working with labor and industry partners to spearhead the creation and adoption of a high-quality, universal pathway leading to a range of good manufacturing careers. The Manufacturing Core Curriculum (MC2) will prepare and connect students and workers to entry-level jobs and registered apprenticeships in the manufacturing industry.
For Workers:
- Creates accelerated pre-hire pathways into advanced manufacturing careers.
- Opens access to good jobs with family sustaining wages and benefits.
- Provides workers with needed training, including safety, industry knowledge, and manufacturing career awareness.
- Increases workers’ knowledge and skills needed to secure employment in the manufacturing industry.
For Unions:
- Establishes a pipeline to union apprenticeships.
- Workers see unions as providing valuable training, creating a positive connection.
- Employers see unions as helping solve workforce challenges, improving labor-management relationships.
- Trains a new generation of workers in skills valued by unions and essential to industrial work: safety, industry awareness, and workers’ rights.
For Employers:
- Establishes new recruitment channels.
- Connects employers to community-based organizations and the workforce system.
- Forms diverse candidate pools for registered apprenticeship and job openings.
- Focuses on training workers in high-demand, employer recognized knowledge and skills.
- Builds a reliable, skilled workforce familiarized with the work of manufacturing, increasing employee retention.
- Generates cost savings on employee recruitment and employer supported job training.
