Building Services Industry Career Path Project

The Building Services Industry Career Path Project helps lower-skilled workers and recent immigrants enter the building services industry and expand opportunities for working janitorial staff. Since early 2005, some 200 incumbent workers have received training and participating employers have addressed the need to clarify career paths and human resource practices in building maintenance.

To build career advancement opportunities for low-skilled building custodians, the Voice and Future Fund, the nonprofit arm of Service Employees International Union Local 615, partners with building management companies, the janitors union, community-based organizations, and the Massachusetts Worker Education Roundtable.

Labor and management are committed to improving English language skills among a large immigrant workforce and to providing them with more advanced training in facilities maintenance and skilled trades, leading to career pathways for full-time employment with benefits. In addition, the project reconnects foreign-trained workers to their jobs and younger workers to education. This innovative partnership brings training providers to the workplace at times that accommodate the working schedules of building custodians, while engaging employers in reshaping their promotional systems to help part-time, entry-level workers progress.