The Urban Manufacturing Alliance and the Century Foundation have assembled a cohort of eight leading urban workforce development organizations forging inclusion in manufacturing training, businesses, and communities – called Industry & Inclusion 4.0. These are a series of discussions touching on many topics and challenges that manufacturers and workforce development organizations face today, some of which existed pre-pandemic and other issues that are arising from the context of today.

The fourth of eight Industry & Inclusion webinars focused on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at “Every Level” of Manufacturing from production jobs and management, to ownership and entrepreneurship. This Fireside Chat featured discussions between I&I cohort members, advisory board members, and employees and owners of manufacturing companies. The two hour panel and discussion included experts who’ve worked on DEI from workforce development, public policy, and corporate perspectives. 

Nieves Longordo, owner of Disensos Ironworks, Hector Huezo, from Jobs to Move America, Bartholomew Taylor, a worker from Union Smart, from BYD (Build Your Dreams), and Livia Lam, from Center for American Progress, shared insights and what it takes to play the long game in engaging industry partners to take a hard look at their own workforce, including frontline production workers (who are most likely to be people of color) as a valuable resource to nurture, and to move into better paid skilled trades and management positions. The discussion highlighted topics ranging from: the importance of sharing trainee stories, support at all stages of career development, the role city contracts could play in promoting DEI, and reframing the focus of workforce development systems. The following are some of the key insights that were shared.

It is important to lead with stories. Helping workers develop their personal stories about their work in manufacturing can have multiple levels of impact. Working with employees and trainees to communicate their stories empowers them by letting them know their experience is important, helps them see what they have achieved, and can help them better communicate with their potential or current employees. Manufacturing remains a sector for workers looking to rewrite their own story after difficult experiences like incarceration. Those stories can also impact elected officials and decision makers, who often remember stories more than data. Stories show the value of workforce development programs to communities, providing needed context, insights, and understanding that grounds the data in a way that motivates people – particularly policymakers – to humanize the problem and want to make change. Putting together lots of diverse stories broadens the conversation and illustrates a need for more open and flexible policies to replace currently narrowly defined policies that limit who can utilize funding and resources. 

A new workforce development system needs to be created to support people up the career ladder. Individual companies – especially small manufacturers – don’t typically have the resources to provide continuous training and skill development to their employees. And individual employees, especially those from underserved BIPOC communities, don’t always have the income to invest in education. The current workforce development system is not focused on the lifelong learning approach, making it difficult for both employers and employees to upskill as the technology changes, which in turn can make it difficult to keep up with industry trends. Additionally, support is needed for managers and owners, not just entry level positions. This is especially true for family-owned businesses when one generation takes over from the previous. In many cases the original owners learned by doing and might not have created manuals, guidebooks, or spent time teaching their skills and know how to share from one generation to the next. This support goes beyond the business administration basics. For example, a company could have developed a culture that is antagonistic towards women and people of color and the new owner(s) want to change that. Resources that prepare new owners to manage this are currently scarce. 

Public investment should result in real public good. Policy and decision makers have a huge opportunity to impact diversity, equity, and inclusion by changing how contracts are awarded. Currently cities – for example if purchasing a fleet of buses – often go with the lowest bidder. This can mean that companies are awarded millions of taxpayer dollars and be implementing discriminatory hiring and employment practices. This can be changed if policy makers define new criteria for how contracts are awarded. Jobs to Move America promotes three criteria be added and defined as: Is a company applying for the contract committed to 1) investing in high quality training programs, 2) invested in high road employment (as defined as family sustaining wages, prioritizing safety, and fair hiring practices ), and 3) invested in equitable hiring and promoting practices. To help get these criteria adopted, it is important for workforce groups to align with labor and environmental groups to make the case that if you are going to be spending public dollars those dollars should have the biggest impact.

We need metrics and systems that define and promote good jobs. The current workforce system promotes quantity of jobs over quality of jobs. The laws behind the workforce development system predominantly talk about skills and skills gaps forcing programs to focus on helping individuals complete a certain number of skills and hours. Rather, we need to make the conversation about job quality, changing the way the system approaches training. Training shouldn’t be a prerequisite to getting training and employment; instead, there is an opportunity to define that a good job is one that provides training, career-long support, and opportunities to advance. By changing the conversation, workforce development programs could focus their work on equipping companies to create good jobs, supportive cultures, and lifelong learning initiatives.