Blue Collar 101: Building Trades & the Path Through Apprenticeship

What does it actually take to become a carpenter in the 21st century? What range of skills and specialties does the trade encompass, and how does someone learn them?For the inaugural session of Blue Collar 101, we're bringing together voices from across the carpentry and building trades to answer those questions directly. Joining us will be members of Local 339 of the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, including a working carpenter who has moved through the apprenticeship pathway alongside a representative from the Massachusetts Division of Apprentice Standards (Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development), who will offer a policy and workforce perspective on how apprenticeship programs function across the Commonwealth.

This is a panel conversation for the general public and those interested in pathways to the trades and industrial work. Expect honest, ground-level discussion about what the work looks like day to day, how skills are acquired, what the apprenticeship pipeline actually offers, and what the public often gets wrong about the trades. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts, alongside unions, industry, and educational institutions, are prioritizing the importance and future of our industrial labor force.

Blue Collar 101 is a public education series based at the Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation. At a moment when conversations about workforce development and the future of work often happen without workers in the room, this program starts from a different premise: the people who build, maintain, and repair the physical world are experts, and their knowledge deserves a public platform.

This will be the first of a recurring series of events, each spotlighting a different trade or type of industrial work, including those that keep our electrical grid powered, water flowing, transit systems running on time, and our modern world functioning around us.

Free and open to the public through a generous grant from the Lowell Institute.

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Host or Publisher Charles River Museum of Industry & Innovation