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Years in the making, workforce readies for Shell plant construction

Years in the making, workforce readies for Shell plant construction

For thousands of industrial workers in the Pittsburgh region who have watched jobs disappear in coal plants and steel mills, it was a rare glimmer of hope. 

An ethane cracker plant for Shell Chemical Appalachia would guarantee work for the building trades on a scale that has not been seen in Western Pennsylvania since the late 1970s when new nuclear and coal plants were constructed side-by-side, one labor union official said.

With Shell’s long-anticipated announcement on Tuesday that it will move forward on the multi-billion dollar plant in Beaver County, labor groups are beginning to launch recruitment and training programs to ensure a workforce is ready by the launch of full construction in some 18 months that eventually could need as many as 6,000 workers.

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“If we can man it with everybody from here, it will be manned with everybody from here,” said Michael McDonald, president of Beaver County Building & Construction Trades Council and a business manager with the Laborers’ District Council of Western Pennsylvania Local 833. 

An artist's rendering of the proposed ethane cracker plant.
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Working conditions will be governed by a framework forged years ago when Shell first got serious about the project, said Mr. McDonald, whose union local has dealt directly with the multinational energy company.

Shell, along with its contractors, established two labor agreements with the building trade unions for early site work — which has been underway for much of the last year — and for full construction, Mr. McDonald said.

The workforce will come mostly from unions and include a mix of both journeyman industrial workers and new apprentices, said Jason Fincke, executive director of the Builders Guild of Western Pennsylvania, Inc. Since Shell’s announcement, many of the 17 building trade unions — which each have their own apprenticeship school — have cautiously been growing their classes in anticipation. 

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Four years ago, the unions were taking in around 600 apprentices each year across all the trade unions, Mr. Fincke said. “The last several years, we’ve been over 1,000.”

Despite the growth, he said, apprentices by and large have been finding work in the region. But it depends on the trade. While carpenters have been busy the last several years with new condominium projects, boilermakers, steamfitters and, to a lesser extent, ironworkers, have felt a pinch from power plants that have shut down, Mr. Fincke said.

“It’s good that Shell has finally made the announcement because we can now end what was a little bit of a risk on our part and move forward,” he said.

Some workers have been able to train for an opportunity at the cracker plant without leaving their current job.

An artist's rendering of the Shell cracker plant.
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With the proposed plant in mind, the Iron Workers Local Union No. 3 created the Future Jobs Training Program, which offers evening courses geared toward people with day jobs, said Jim Gallik, apprenticeship coordinator for the Iron Workers. Traditional apprenticeships involve about eight weeks of intensive classes with on-the-job training through the year.

“This is a great opportunity for anybody who wants to get a family-sustaining career,” Mr. Gallik said. “We currently have 1,400 members, and our guys can pretty much stay busy for the most part,” though he did acknowledge maintenance work has declined as other industrial plants have shuttered. 

Construction workers earned, on average, $28.04 an hour in May, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That can range by occupation, the department’s data showed.

The sheer scale of the planned cracker plant brings with it the challenge of accommodating workers. At its peak construction, the plant could end up involving more than 6,000 workers across all shifts, said Mr. McDonald, the Beaver County union official.

A typical industrial construction project has brought in around 1,000 workers — about the size of workforce needed to build Allegheny Technologies Inc.’s rolling mill in Brackenridge.

Some facilities require far fewer workers. A natural gas-fired power plant under development in Westmoreland County, as well as a proposed gas-fired power plant in Elizabeth Township, both indicate about 300 workers are needed for construction.

The largest construction endeavor Mr. McDonald remembers is the building of five nuclear and coal power plant units in the late 1970s in Shippingport, and that required around 8,000 workers during the construction phases. 

Mr. McDonald said construction workers — no strangers to traveling long distance to job sites — will likely want to drive to work if they are within a reasonable distance.

Others might opt for a short-term apartment or a hotel that offers weekly rates. New hotels have sprung up in Monaca, he said, that already cater to some workers who have been preparing the site for construction.

James Kunz, business manager for the Operating Engineers Local 66, said dozens of his laborers have worked on the site for the last year and a half. As one of the first workers to arrive and the last to leave a construction site, Mr. Kunz said, operating engineers run heavy equipment like cranes, bulldozers and forklifts. 

Beyond the plant itself, he expects new construction of facilities that support the chemical industry to crop up in coming years.

“For the region, I think this is a game-changer,” Mr. Kunz said. “The beauty of it is we’ll have a demand for trades to build a lot of downstream construction. I think this thing is going to provide employment opportunities for a lot longer than the plant itself.”

Daniel Moore: dmoore@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2743 and Twitter @PGdanielmoore.

First Published: June 8, 2016, 4:00 a.m.

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An artist's rendering of the cracker plant courtesy of Shell.
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