Local 150 becomes AWPT training center

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 Training Center, located in Wilmington, IL, recently joined the International Powered Access Federation (IPAF) and became an American Work Platform Training (AWPT) center.

As the Local 150 found more workers using aerial work platforms for their day-to-date operations, it was clear to the Union that AWPs are becoming more popular and the need for proper training was called for.

"After looking at a number of training methods and talking with other people in the industry, Local 150's Apprenticeship and Skill Improvement Program (ASIP) concluded that the programs offered by AWPT were the most thorough and provided their organization with the tools they needed to integrate aerial work platform training into their certification protocols," AWPT said in a statement. "AWPT offers the internationally-recognized PAL Card (Powered Access Licensed-registration) to people who successfully complete a training program on a class of work platform equipment. They also provide a logbook for listing specific machine familiarization so union members have a way of showing that they had been trained on a particular piece of equipment."

After joining IPAF and becoming an AWPT Training Center, Local 150 now has over a half dozen AWPT-approved instructors on board and they are beginning to offer training to their membership.

Local 150's training center is 50 miles outside of Chicago and is situated on 300 acres, has a 342,000-square-foot space housing 30 classrooms, an indoor training area, a 200-seat auditorium, more than 200 pieces of heavy equipment, testing labs and much more. It serves union members throughout Northern Illinois, Eastern Iowa and Northern Indiana and offers a variety of apprenticeship programs designed to provide journeypersons and apprentices with the necessary skills to acquire and maintain jobs in the many industries they serve. The site is open on a year round basis and has full time instructors available to the members six days a week, Monday through Saturday.