The training centre for Sudbury, Ont.’s Carpenters’ Union Local 2486 received a grant of $275,000 for a new telehandler and dust collection system that puts the facility “on the leading edge of technology.”
So says Tom Cardinal, area manager of the local, noting all members operating telehandlers on industrial sites will be required to obtain a certificate of safe operation on the new Merlo Roto telehandler.
The telehandler has an 85-foot reach and replaces an outdated 15-year-old telehandler “that didn’t have the safety features of the new one.”
The new machine features a 16-foot man basket and a winch attachment.
“It serves as a multiple tool for training purposes here,” says Cardinal.
Also part of the federal grant is a $135,000 dust collection system to replace an under-capacity dust unit, he says.
“We were quite surprised to receive the funding,” says Cardinal of the grant through the federal government’s Union Training and Innovation Program.
“The program was put out to help unions with their training centres attract new members because of the shortage of workers.”
The training centre of Local 2486 is located in Azilda, part of Sudbury, and opened in 2009.
It holds three intakes annually, training a total of 45 carpenter apprentices, and it also provides training for the drywall and acoustic trade.
It is a satellite campus to the College of Carpenters and Allied Trades in Toronto which has 1,100 members.
Great to see, they do a great job training and and supporting the construction industry in the north.