Boston signed a deal with the local unions tied to BPS construction projects creating direct pathways to job opportunities for Madison Park Vocational High graduates, city officials announced Tuesday.
“Madison Park, just like BPS, has had to do more with less for far too long – students, parents, educators and community members have been left wondering, ‘Why can’t we have all the benefits and opportunities that students at vocational schools in the suburbs have?'” Mayor Michelle Wu said Tuesday morning. “That is about to change with this agreement. Madison Park will have something better than any other vocational school in the state, because this agreement provides for apprenticeship opportunities at a scale that no one else has.”
At Madison Park High School, the mayor signed the Project Labor Agreement (PLA) with the Greater Boston Building Trades Unions and the North Atlantic States Regional Council of Carpenters, “ensuring a consistent supply of skilled, union labor for major BPS capital projects.”
Under the provisions of the PLA, up to 50 Madison Park graduates will be guaranteed spots in the Building Pathways pre-apprenticeship program for trades union.
The Building Pathways program will guarantee will have guaranteed admission to the top-performing half of each Madison Park graduating class in carpentry; electricity; heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC); metal fabrication; plumbing; and building and property maintenance. The pre-apprenticeship will then be followed by admission to a registered apprenticeship program.
Chaton Green, a business agent with the Greater Boston Building Trades Unions and Madison Park graduate, said this PLA will empower students to “not have to wait 10 years to find access to great careers” like he did.
“When you give a young person the tools to earn a living, to stand tall with pride in their work and to build something that lasts, that doesn’t just change a project, it changes a life,” said Green. “The ripple effects of this PLA will be felt for decades, creating stable pathways to home ownership, to save for the future, and building stronger, safer communities. This is how we fight inequality, not with words, but with work, with opportunity, with good union jobs.”
The PLA will also keep BPS’s Long Term Facilities Plan moving forward by supplying consistent labor, Wu said, and aligns with Boston’s “equitable procurement and supplier diversity standards to expand opportunities to women- and minority-owned businesses.”
The agreement also includes provisions committing to exploring a trust fund subsidizing childcare for union workers, which Wu called a “personal issue of mine” Tuesday.
Through the Long Term Facilities Plan the district is currently working on a new Carter School, a renovation of the Irving building for the new Sarah Roberts Elementary, and an expansion of the PJ Kennedy Elementary School all on track to open in September 2025. The Madison Park school building, which has shared with the O’Bryant school since 1987, has also long been slated for a facilities overhaul.
“But we’re not waiting for that renovation to be done,” said Wu. “We’re not waiting even for the MSBA application or other parts of it to be completed before we get to work at Madison. We are doing this because our students deserve every improvement, every opportunity, every expansion of resources now.”