Sheet Metal Workers Local 16 is building out its Northeast Portland training center — and using the expansion to test out a model project labor agreement that local unions hope could become a template for private construction projects.
Known as the Sheet Metal Institute, the training center is financed and overseen jointly by the union and its signatory contractors. At the center, apprentice sheet metal workers learn all aspects of the trade, including reading blueprints, installing custom ductwork, testing and balancing HVAC systems, using plasma tables, hydraulic presses, and welding equipment to cut, bend, and join sheet metal plates.
Currently the 40,000 square foot training center is mostly classroom space, with 6,000 feet of shop space. The expansion will add 9,000 square feet of additional shop space on the south side of the building where a fenced-in paved lot has been used for storage and scrap bins.
Local 16 leaders have been discussing the expansion for a decade, says Rob Postma, regional representative of the Northwest Regional Council of SMART Union.
“We’re looking towards the future,” Postma said. “We want to provide better training and stay current, and use our members’ money wisely.”
Postma is a former coordinator of the Sheet Metal Institute. He says when the existing facility was built in the 1990s, the vision was more of a college setup with lots of classrooms. But that was before drafting and computing tools became more mobile; now a lot of work is done on tablets.
The new space will match the existing building’s two-story height but with high ceilings. That will allow for the installation of a “building within a building” where apprentices can practice installing ductwork and working safely at heights, all in a controlled environment and out of the rain. The mock building within will mimic a commercial job site — with steel structures, concrete and metal deck floors, and shafts and canopies.
“We’ve done a really good job of teaching apprentices about shop work, how to build duct work, how to weld items,” Postma said, “but we didn’t have a hands-on way to show them how to install it. We always kind of relied on the contractors to do that.”
The building-within-building concept took inspiration from other locals. In Livermore, California, Sheet Metal Local 104 has a red iron steel structure inside its training center. And in Everett, Washington, Local 66 has a wooden residential type structure inside its shop.
The new space will also include a compressor room and a gas bunker to store bottled welding gases.
Template PLA
It was important to Sheet Metal Institute leaders that the work be done entirely union, so as project owner, they mandated that general contractor Perlo Construction sign a project labor agreement (PLA) with the Columbia Pacific Building Trades Council. Local 16 attorney Scott Strickland worked with other building trades union attorneys to come up with terms of an agreement that could be used on other private projects. Their finished product was signed by the general contractor and all building trades craft unions except the carpenters.
“Our union contracts deliver projects from small tenant improvements under $50,000 all the way up to multibillion dollar mega projects, and we don’t see why PLAs can’t do the same,” Strickland told the Labor Press. “They’re just a tool for general contractors and project owners to ensure the predictability and availability of skilled labor, and that when you’re investing in these things, they’re done to the best value of not just yourself but the community.”
Most of the add-on structure will be concrete, but members working for three Local 16 signatory contractors will also be performing some of the work on their training center expansion. General Sheet Metal will do the HVAC work on the project, Swan Island Sheet Metal will be doing structural steel, and Arctic Sheet Metal will be doing architectural metal.
The expansion is expected to be complete by the end of 2026.
The project’s cost, estimated at just under $4 million, is funded by about $2 million in reserves and about $2 million mortgage loan from union-led IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union. The loan will be paid off by a 10-cent-an-hour building assessment contribution that Local 16 members approved last year. Once the loan is paid off, that money will go back on their paychecks.
