Kentucky Attorney General Andy Beshear visited Owensboro Thursday to discuss the jobs plan he hopes to implement should he be elected governor in November.
In the third stop after releasing his economic plan earlier this week, Beshear visited the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 663 on Alvey Park Drive where he met with an apprenticeship class. Jeremy Young, training coordinator and business agent for Local 633, gave Beshear a tour of the program.
Young said Local 633 has almost 300 members, 100 more retirees and serves 11 counties in western Kentucky. All plumber and pipefitter apprentices must have 246 hours of school each year and they must have 1,700 hours to advance to the next school year. Additionally, apprentices are required to spend 8,500 hours on the job, under supervision, over a five-year period.
“They have to work to earn it,” Young said of the apprentices he trains, who come in on nights and weekends, sometimes for 10-hour days.
Beshear said unions, like Local 633, are an important part of his jobs plan.
“To move Kentucky into the next 30 years, we have to have a skilled workforce,” Beshear said.
To achieve that, Beshear plans to partner with labor unions, which he said are already turning out highly skilled workers. He hopes the state can work with unions to consolidate training efforts, but ultimately turn out trades workers with certifications that allow them to financially support their families.
The United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry (UA) offers a Veterans in Piping (VIP) program, which provides high-quality skills training and jobs in the pipe trades to active duty military personnel preparing to leave the service. Local 633 has actively participated in the program and Beshear was particularly interested in this because of a veteran’s job package he hopes to implement.
“[VIP] is one of those training modules we ought to lift up, make sure we have more of,” he said.
Beshear said the current administration focuses on creating jobs in Kentucky’s three largest cities and he plans to focus on creating jobs across the Commonwealth, especially western Kentucky.
In the first of a two-part plan, Beshear plans to focus on investing in the agritech industry.
“The United Nations estimates we have to increase our food output by 70 percent in the next 30 years alone,” he said. “That means agritech is going to be one of the fastest growing industries in the world. And I think we should be a world leader right here in western Kentucky.”
This would not only put the Commonwealth on the map, he said, but also would create six-figure jobs across the region.
The second arm of Beshear’s jobs plan involves advanced manufacturing, an industry where he says automation is taking too many jobs from Kentuckians.
Beshear opened a field office for his campaign in Owensboro on Monday. He and Lieutenant Governor hopeful Jacqueline Coleman addressed the importance of western Kentucky to room full of supporters at the Daviess County Democratic Party office.
“You will hear [my] vision for western Kentucky a lot on my campaign,” Beshear told Owensboro Times on Monday. “I am committed to this area.”
