Local News

HINCKLEY, Minn. (WCCO) ― It's easy to see how Minnesota's slow economy and long winter can have a debilitating effect on heavy equipment operators.

The ground is frozen and the economy is in disarray, but with talk of the federal stimulus plan promising up to 12,000 construction jobs this summer, hope is on the horizon.

Many of those unemployed heavy equipment operators who are home this winter, will be building roads and highways and bridges come June.

However, if you think these construction workers are sitting in an ice house or doing chores around their own house, think again. During their down time, more than 4,000 members of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 49 are sharpening their abilities so they're ready when those projects get started.

In dense woods, 10 miles east of Hinckley, Minn., you can hear the clatter of caterpillar tracks see mounds of fresh dirt. At first glance you might assume it is some kind of construction site, but what the heavy equipment operators are working on are their own skills.

Gary Lindblad is the site director for Local 49's Hinckley training facility. He said the idea is simple, "the more tools you have in your toolbox to go to work, the more employable you are."

The multi-million dollar facility houses a campus of indoor classrooms and outdoor courses. Its mission is to educate, train and certify the union's 13,000 operating engineers -- the skilled workers who operate heavy cranes and bulldozers, earthmovers and backhoes, front-end loaders and forklifts.

People like Derek Asrouch, spent Thursday working the controls of a state-of-the-art backhoe simulator. What he's learning in the classroom this winter should make him more employable come spring.

To see how winter training will help union members win summer jobs, the state's education commissioner, Alice Seagren, stopped by for a tour.

She said when the millions of dollars in federal stimulus projects take to soil, workers will be ready.

"These people are ... retraining and training -- keeping their skills up. they're So, people can be guaranteed that they are going to have highly skilled workers ... building the best bridges and the best roads," Seagren said.

Assisted by veteran instructors, students learn to move dirt more efficiently and with greater precision. When a contractor is getting paid by the yard, every bucket load needs to be full. The operator who is wasting space in the bucket is wasting money and won't be working long.

Today's earthmovers are also high tech. On the front of a D6 Caterpillar you see two antennas at each end of the Cat's blade. They're actually receivers for a Global Positioning Satellite system, or GPS. The technology helps guide the operator make precise cuts into the earth at just the right elevation and angle.

The training, in the classroom or out in the dirt, is paid for by the members themselves. About $0.50 out of their hourly wage is diverted to pay the cost of their ongoing training.

As a requirement to stimulate new jobs as well as employ the unemployed, federal contracts will require hiring apprentices. So the union's training center is working with 300 apprentices to get them qualified at a machine's controls.

When winter's snow turns to summer's sun, the long hours of training will pay off and benefit most the people whose skills will be sharper and shovel ready.

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