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CWA/NETT: Taking IT Training On-Line
CWA’s technical training has come a long way since January 2000. That’s when the union announced a major partnership with telecom employers, information technology providers, Cisco Systems, universities and government to provide opportunities for members to upgrade their skills while continuing to work.
That month the CWA National Education and Training Trust opened a CWA/NETT training center in Washington, D.C., to augment centers already up and running in Fremont, Calif., and Cleveland, Ohio.
Now 11 centers and mini-labs throughout the country are providing members and prospective members the opportunity to gain hands-on experience to go with a vastly expanded distance-learning curriculum.
In conjunction with Stanly Community College, CWA/NETT offers a range of courses leading to A+ and Cisco’s vaunted CCNA certifications, as well as fundamentals of UNIX; voice and data cabling; Microsoft Word, MOUS, Powerpoint, Excel and Access; and coming in July, fundamentals of Java.
Members can use training benefits CWA has bargained with various employers. Limited scholarships are available and, courses are also now open to members’ spouses and children. In addition, CWA’s employment center will refer qualified candidates to the companies that are hiring.
“Never before has there been such a wide range of opportunities for our members to stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly changing technological world,” said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen. “CWA/NETT today is preparing our members for the jobs of tomorrow.”
Virtual Networks
Say you order a new storm door from Home Depot and you’re concerned about delivery. Customer Service punches up your order on a computer that tells you what truck will deliver your new door from hundreds of miles away and what day it is scheduled to arrive.
The information flies over high-speed T-1 lines for voice and data that link Home Depot stores in New York and other cities to a central inventory system and with corporate headquarters in Atlanta.
Wayne King of Local 1150 is part of the team that put Home Depot online. King, 54, a communications technician working out of AT&T’s 33 Thomas St. location in New York City, is one of about 50 left there after the World Trade Center disaster. The company shipped about 70 Thomas Street jobs to its White Plains, N.Y., facility, despite fierce CWA opposition.
Already highly trained after 31 years with the company, King is thinking about what he will do in retirement or if AT&T should require that he move on earlier than he would like.
King, who works on computers, completed the A+ Computer Upgrade and Repair certification through CWA/NETT in March 2001. “I can take the certification with me wherever I go,” he says. He studied weekends and evenings at home from September to February, and completely disassembled and put back together a computer at Local 1180’s mini-lab on Harrison Street.
The cost of King’s training will be paid through the Alliance for Employee Growth and Development, a benefit of collective bargaining with CWA, and already he is set to study for the CCNA. As a Cisco Certified Network Associate, he’ll be ready to configure the routers that tie in customers from their end of the network, whether for AT&T or as a private consultant.
Tom King, another Local 1150 member, also realizes the possibilities. He just started the third semester of the Cisco Network Academy, leading to the CCNA certification.
“It fit in with the experience I had, and I was thinking of taking it through a local college,” King says. “One of my shop stewards told me to check out the CWA/NETT, and I found the course there. It fit my schedule a lot better, and it was a heck of a lot cheaper.”
Each semester of the CCNA program requires eight weeks of home study, with students submitting assignments to Stanly Community College and receiving feedback from an instructor over the Internet.
“There’s an advantage to doing it online, because if you go to a traditional college, you’re stuck with their schedule. Online, you can set your own pace,” he notes.
Each semester also requires 16 hours of practical lab work, which King has been completing at the Local 1180 mini-lab.
Proctor Jack Eichinger, a Local 1150 retiree, makes the lab available by appointment 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and readily shares his considerable experience — for eight years he built computers for AT&T.
Matching Labs to Students
Not every mini-lab is equipped for every course CWA/NETT offers, nor are all labs available weekends. Eichinger has had students come from as far away as Texas and Puerto Rico because the New York lab could accommodate their schedules.
Other mini-labs developed by the trust in conjunction with CWA locals and districts are located in San Diego (Local 9509) and San Jose, Calif. (Local 9423), Cleveland, Ohio (Local 4340), Houston, Texas (Local 6222), Virginia Beach, Va. (Local 2202) and Milwaukee, Wis. (Local 4603).
Though available to students from throughout CWA, several offer training directly to their own members or through partnerships with local community service agencies.
CWA/NETT training is also available through centers in Washington, D.C., and Seattle, Wash., and at Stanly College in Albemarle, N.C.
Local 9509, which operates a mini-lab, developed a standardized test — offered on the CWA/NETT web site — to measure the skills of prospective customer service representatives. (The web site also features a standardized test to measure technicians’ skills and to help them determine where
they fit in the CWA/NETT curriculum.)
“We have classes here almost every night of the week except Sunday,” says Local 9509 President and Proctor Judy Beal.
The local helps students prepare for the service rep
test, expecting that soon SBC will open a new call center in the area, with 1,000 new jobs. And the lab is equipped for A+ and CCNA, and for CWA/NETT’s newer courses on Microsoft office programs, to help members qualify for better paying administrative jobs.
Experienced Proctors
Beal, a former Pacific Bell comm tech, worked on digital switches and has taken the A+ course. A second proctor, Sharon Phillips, installed power for equipment in central offices.
CWA/NETT proctors often come from the union’s rank and file. They know what it takes to get established in a telecom
or IT career, or to make the transition to a new or better job.
Brian Bauer, proctor of Local 4603’s lab in Milwaukee and chair of the local’s training committee, saw his job wiped out along with those of 500 other service reps when SBC/Ameritech closed its Milwaukee call center in 1998.
“At that point I realized the need to have something out there, to help people find other jobs within the company or at a different company,” he says.
Bauer, who had prior electronics experience from working at Radio Shack, used SBC/Ameritech benefits, bargained by the union, to take the A+ certification. The company rehired him to work as a service rep in its Industry Markets division and soon promoted him to telecommunications specialist in its Siemens Switching Technology Center.
Because of its reliability, SBC has been moving toward use of the digital switch developed by Siemens in Germany. Bauer and colleagues monitor in the neighborhood of 250 to 300 switches throughout the five-state region of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Dedicated Students
Even before the Milwaukee mini-lab opened in October 2001, Bauer mentored members studying for technical certifications. Now with about 15 students registered for A+, he says, “I’ve been able to really help members.”
He’s proud of the progress of students like Song Sira Conner, a mother who brought her elementary school-aged daughter with her to work in the lab on Christmas Eve. “Between work and family, she didn’t have any other time,” he says.
Also, two outside cabling technicians from a small CWA-represented company in Appleton, Wis., who hope to secure better paying jobs — Josh Baumann, a young single man, and Brian Lesterance, married, in his thirties — both drove about 100 miles each way to put in their lab hours.
“To my knowledge, both these gentlemen completed their A+ courses and were going to register for the CCNA,” Bauer says. “They were moving very quickly through the program and were excited about the opportunities.”
That month the CWA National Education and Training Trust opened a CWA/NETT training center in Washington, D.C., to augment centers already up and running in Fremont, Calif., and Cleveland, Ohio.
Now 11 centers and mini-labs throughout the country are providing members and prospective members the opportunity to gain hands-on experience to go with a vastly expanded distance-learning curriculum.
In conjunction with Stanly Community College, CWA/NETT offers a range of courses leading to A+ and Cisco’s vaunted CCNA certifications, as well as fundamentals of UNIX; voice and data cabling; Microsoft Word, MOUS, Powerpoint, Excel and Access; and coming in July, fundamentals of Java.
Members can use training benefits CWA has bargained with various employers. Limited scholarships are available and, courses are also now open to members’ spouses and children. In addition, CWA’s employment center will refer qualified candidates to the companies that are hiring.
“Never before has there been such a wide range of opportunities for our members to stay ahead of the curve in this rapidly changing technological world,” said CWA Executive Vice President Larry Cohen. “CWA/NETT today is preparing our members for the jobs of tomorrow.”
Virtual Networks
Say you order a new storm door from Home Depot and you’re concerned about delivery. Customer Service punches up your order on a computer that tells you what truck will deliver your new door from hundreds of miles away and what day it is scheduled to arrive.
The information flies over high-speed T-1 lines for voice and data that link Home Depot stores in New York and other cities to a central inventory system and with corporate headquarters in Atlanta.
Wayne King of Local 1150 is part of the team that put Home Depot online. King, 54, a communications technician working out of AT&T’s 33 Thomas St. location in New York City, is one of about 50 left there after the World Trade Center disaster. The company shipped about 70 Thomas Street jobs to its White Plains, N.Y., facility, despite fierce CWA opposition.
Already highly trained after 31 years with the company, King is thinking about what he will do in retirement or if AT&T should require that he move on earlier than he would like.
King, who works on computers, completed the A+ Computer Upgrade and Repair certification through CWA/NETT in March 2001. “I can take the certification with me wherever I go,” he says. He studied weekends and evenings at home from September to February, and completely disassembled and put back together a computer at Local 1180’s mini-lab on Harrison Street.
The cost of King’s training will be paid through the Alliance for Employee Growth and Development, a benefit of collective bargaining with CWA, and already he is set to study for the CCNA. As a Cisco Certified Network Associate, he’ll be ready to configure the routers that tie in customers from their end of the network, whether for AT&T or as a private consultant.
Tom King, another Local 1150 member, also realizes the possibilities. He just started the third semester of the Cisco Network Academy, leading to the CCNA certification.
“It fit in with the experience I had, and I was thinking of taking it through a local college,” King says. “One of my shop stewards told me to check out the CWA/NETT, and I found the course there. It fit my schedule a lot better, and it was a heck of a lot cheaper.”
Each semester of the CCNA program requires eight weeks of home study, with students submitting assignments to Stanly Community College and receiving feedback from an instructor over the Internet.
“There’s an advantage to doing it online, because if you go to a traditional college, you’re stuck with their schedule. Online, you can set your own pace,” he notes.
Each semester also requires 16 hours of practical lab work, which King has been completing at the Local 1180 mini-lab.
Proctor Jack Eichinger, a Local 1150 retiree, makes the lab available by appointment 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and readily shares his considerable experience — for eight years he built computers for AT&T.
Matching Labs to Students
Not every mini-lab is equipped for every course CWA/NETT offers, nor are all labs available weekends. Eichinger has had students come from as far away as Texas and Puerto Rico because the New York lab could accommodate their schedules.
Other mini-labs developed by the trust in conjunction with CWA locals and districts are located in San Diego (Local 9509) and San Jose, Calif. (Local 9423), Cleveland, Ohio (Local 4340), Houston, Texas (Local 6222), Virginia Beach, Va. (Local 2202) and Milwaukee, Wis. (Local 4603).
Though available to students from throughout CWA, several offer training directly to their own members or through partnerships with local community service agencies.
CWA/NETT training is also available through centers in Washington, D.C., and Seattle, Wash., and at Stanly College in Albemarle, N.C.
Local 9509, which operates a mini-lab, developed a standardized test — offered on the CWA/NETT web site — to measure the skills of prospective customer service representatives. (The web site also features a standardized test to measure technicians’ skills and to help them determine where
they fit in the CWA/NETT curriculum.)
“We have classes here almost every night of the week except Sunday,” says Local 9509 President and Proctor Judy Beal.
The local helps students prepare for the service rep
test, expecting that soon SBC will open a new call center in the area, with 1,000 new jobs. And the lab is equipped for A+ and CCNA, and for CWA/NETT’s newer courses on Microsoft office programs, to help members qualify for better paying administrative jobs.
Experienced Proctors
Beal, a former Pacific Bell comm tech, worked on digital switches and has taken the A+ course. A second proctor, Sharon Phillips, installed power for equipment in central offices.
CWA/NETT proctors often come from the union’s rank and file. They know what it takes to get established in a telecom
or IT career, or to make the transition to a new or better job.
Brian Bauer, proctor of Local 4603’s lab in Milwaukee and chair of the local’s training committee, saw his job wiped out along with those of 500 other service reps when SBC/Ameritech closed its Milwaukee call center in 1998.
“At that point I realized the need to have something out there, to help people find other jobs within the company or at a different company,” he says.
Bauer, who had prior electronics experience from working at Radio Shack, used SBC/Ameritech benefits, bargained by the union, to take the A+ certification. The company rehired him to work as a service rep in its Industry Markets division and soon promoted him to telecommunications specialist in its Siemens Switching Technology Center.
Because of its reliability, SBC has been moving toward use of the digital switch developed by Siemens in Germany. Bauer and colleagues monitor in the neighborhood of 250 to 300 switches throughout the five-state region of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Dedicated Students
Even before the Milwaukee mini-lab opened in October 2001, Bauer mentored members studying for technical certifications. Now with about 15 students registered for A+, he says, “I’ve been able to really help members.”
He’s proud of the progress of students like Song Sira Conner, a mother who brought her elementary school-aged daughter with her to work in the lab on Christmas Eve. “Between work and family, she didn’t have any other time,” he says.
Also, two outside cabling technicians from a small CWA-represented company in Appleton, Wis., who hope to secure better paying jobs — Josh Baumann, a young single man, and Brian Lesterance, married, in his thirties — both drove about 100 miles each way to put in their lab hours.
“To my knowledge, both these gentlemen completed their A+ courses and were going to register for the CCNA,” Bauer says. “They were moving very quickly through the program and were excited about the opportunities.”