Building a Future in Tough Times

Apprentice Jolie Gallaway practices with a soil density gauge in the arena at Operating Engineers Local 150 training facility in Wilmington. SouthtownStar photo: Joseph P. Meier

For Jolie Gallaway, a union job in the construction trade offered an escape from the unsteady toil of waitressing.

Faced with the aftermath of a divorce and mounting bills, Gallaway accepted a chance offer to work for a construction engineering firm with offices in Tinley Park in 2005.

Her new job meant a big boost in pay, a stable schedule and a handsome benefits package.

“All the stuff I didn’t have,” Gallaway said.

She lugged around weighty equipment, learned the tools of her trade and endured hot days on steamy asphalt and construction job sites. On-the-job training and union apprentice classes boosted her skill and confidence.

Soon, the 33-year-old mom would earn up to $30 an hour in specting the soil, steel and concrete that made local roads and buildings possible – responsibilities that gave her a new sense of job satisfaction after years as a waitress and restaurant manager.

Gallaway started saving money and paying down debt. She bought a black sport utility vehicle to cart around job materials. Forced to move into her parents’ Frankfort home after her divorce, Gallaway was close to moving herself and her 9-year-old son into their own place.

“Things were looking bright,” she said.

But the economy started melting down and developers quit building. Construction work dried up.

In 2008, Gallaway worked her union job for just two months.

Losing her job at Testing Service Corporation, Gallaway joined more than 7,000 of her colleagues on the out-of-work list for Local 150 of the International Union of Operating Engineers.

That’s almost one-third of the membership.

Construction workers idling

Gallaway found herself among the now nearly 2 million construction industry workers who are unemployed, according to U.S. government data. That’s about a 9 percent increase from last year.

In March alone, 126,000 construction jobs disappeared.

The loss of work has Local 150′s members packing the classrooms at the massive training hall in Wilmington. They’re taking classes to improve their skills, preparing and hoping for some sort of turnaround.

“No one knows what to say, what to think,” Gallaway said.

Many are trying to learn new skills in anticipation of a new job. Union officials say laborers logged 77 percent more training hours in 2008 than the average of the past five years. Already in 2009, that number has jumped 34 percent.

The number of members using the union’s food pantry program, which provides groceries and gift cards to workers undergoing tough times, has risen, too. Many of Local 150′s members are struggling to hold onto or find side jobs to support their families. They used to build roads and buildings. Now some are delivering pizzas.

“We have a great many members who are desperately in need of help just to get by ,” said James Sweeney, who heads Local 150.

How to pay the bills

Gallaway returned to waitressing, working lunch shifts at Charleston’s, a New Lenox bar and grill where the customers, feeling their own economic pinch, have grown as scarce as big tips.

With extra cash a distant luxury, she has sacrificed, scrapping her weekly “date night” with her son, Reide. The boy suffers from seizures, and Gallaway wonders how she’ll afford Reide’s $60 in medicine each month.

She’s skipped payments for martial arts lessons that keep her out of the bars and into a healthy lifestyle.

And she’s been working without insurance.

Last month, Gallaway paid $500 for a visit to the doctor. A visit to the optometrist and new eyeglasses cost her $600.

When you’re counting on tips, covering those bills isn’t easy, she said.

“I’m still living check to check,” Gallaway said. “It’s like it’s never going to end. … It would be nice to have something extra. There’s never anything extra.”

Gallaway said she’s not encour aged by the federal stimulus money, either. Although billions may go toward building or repairing the nation’s infrastructure – almost $1 billion to Illinois alone – she doesn’t believe the federal spending will do much to secure her a job in the long term.

“I don’t understand where (the stimulus money) goes,” she said. “But I understand that it’s not helping me.”

Waiting on the future

Her union bosses scored a small victory in the passing of a $3 billion construction bill that was signed into law earlier this month by Gov. Pat Quinn. Illinois’ unions are pushing hard for an expanded capital bill that would bring thousands of jobs and billions more dollars to new state infrastructure projects.

Like so many victims of a bad economy, Gallaway has held onto hope.

She’s been waitressing.

And wondering.

For a few weeks, she waited to hear about a possible construction job that would have her driving to Rosemont – a far commute from Frankfort – but one she was willing to take for steady pay.

That didn’t pan out.

But on Thursday, after a seemingly endless wait, she was called back to work to a new job at a Frankfort company specializing in material testing and constructio n.

It comes with a catch: She’s only guaranteed a week’s work.

“It’s progress; it’s a foot in the door,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean they’ll call me back.”