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Carpenters Union looking for a new generation of builders

Two carpenters working on a floor design.
Carpenters Union Local 276

The local Carpenters Union is looking for a new generation of members who can swing a hammer, run a saw and use a tape measure.

The union and construction companies that hire union members of the building trades will be at the Delavan Grider Community Center Wednesday looking for carpenters and people who want to apply for an apprenticeship with the union.

These are jobs with high pay and good benefits. The event is sponsored by Workforce Buffalo and Buffalo Employment and Training Center and starts at 10 a.m.

"Especially with COVID, everybody is recruiting and we have a lot more jobs than people, at the moment. They are really looking for people and trying to get them ready to go and become carpenters," said BETC Executive Director Demone Smith. "If you look at the building trades, a lot of people are starting to age out and they really need new people to come in and especially women and people of color and young folks."

Smith said applicants need basic math skills and the ability to read and do physical work. He said there will also be other building trades looking, as the summer construction season starts to arrive.

"Everything is a progression. You look at your success and how many people you have around you and not under you," Smith said. "And so you have people who start out as tradesmen and then, eventually, they'll grow and form companies and then they'll hire tradesmen to work for them. So it's a perpetuating progress for trade work."

Mike Desmond is one of Western New York’s most experienced reporters, having spent nearly a half-century covering the region for newspapers, television stations and public radio. He has been with WBFO and its predecessor, WNED-AM, since 1988. As a reporter for WBFO, he has covered literally thousands of stories involving education, science, business, the environment and many other issues. Mike has been a long-time theater reviewer for a variety of publications and was formerly a part-time reporter for The New York Times.