This spring, LOHP facilitated the first-ever health and safety course for the California State Workforce Development Board’s High Road Training Partnership (HRTP) grantees. HRTP is a California workforce development program that focuses on creating jobs that are high quality, create equity, and support climate mitigation. Grantees run pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs throughout the state.
Tenaya Lafore, LOHP Program Coordinator, describes that “many of the industries the HRTP programs work in – including warehouses and logistics, grocery stores, agriculture, and construction – have higher than average injury and illness rates. In this 4-part class, participants reflected on what High Road health and safety looks like, experienced LOHP’s participatory and worker-centered teaching approaches, and strategized concrete steps to bring in workers’ voices to their health and safety work.” Feedback from one of the participants was: “Tying worker voice, discussing the different levels of strategies, and doing so with many different types of HRTP partners helped me refine my vision of our role as a training organization in the midst of employer sites and policy makers.”
Class participants included HRTP grantees United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Equitable Farming Initiative (EFI), Rising Sun Center for Opportunity in Oakland, the West Oakland Jobs and Resource Center (WOJRC), and High Road to Logistics (Plug In IE) in the Inland Empire. For more information: tenaya@berkeley.edu.