How can KC fix infrastructure, fill jobs and empower women? One word: apprenticeships | Opinion
Help us work
Registered apprenticeships are the gold standard of work-based learning, where participants can earn as they learn. They place people — like Tina Shonk Little, a member of the International Union of Operating Engineers in Kansas City — on pathways to high-paying careers with better benefits and greater job security. The average salary of an apprenticeship graduate is $80,000 per year.
The U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations grant program helps grantees, such as Kansas City’s Heartland Women in Trades, provide support services and job skills training to prepare women like Tina for promising careers, and helps employers create a work culture that provides women the opportunity to succeed. This work could not be timelier, as Missouri and Kansas are seeing billions of dollars in investment from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and must fill thousands of skilled trades jobs.
As we celebrate National Apprenticeship Week Nov. 13-19, we need local, state and federal leaders and employers to commit to addressing issues such as pay inequity, access to affordable child care, workplace flexibility, paid leave and training that support parents, and especially women in the workforce, so that all people can share in our nation’s economic growth.
- Gina Rodriguez, Midwest Regional Administrator, U.S. Department of Labor’s Women’s Bureau, Chicago
Off limits
No one should ever hurt an infant or young child. Innocent babies struggling for life in hospital beds should not be left to die. No one should harm babies, regardless of the parents’ faith or lack thereof. These are basic pro-life tenets.
It is abhorrent to snatch little ones as hostages. It also seems inhumane to hold babies, toddlers and their parents in virtual captivity via an area-wide siege. I abhor Hamas’ attack last month on innocent Israelis. Nevertheless, if two wrongs don’t make a right, how can the deaths of 11,000 Palestinians, many of them children, ever make right the tragedies of Oct. 7?
Negotiating a cease-fire is never easy, but this must take place immediately. If the warring parties cannot get sufficient fuel or supplies to Al-Shifa and Al-Quds hospitals so that staff can generate fuel, provide sanitation and feed patients, the United Nations or other neutral actors need to deliver this material aid to patients and refugees. Ensure that all civilians have access to food, water and safe havens. Most important, hospitals should be properly supplied and kept strictly off-limits to warring parties — full stop.
- Janice Jean Stallings, Kansas City
Take a stand
Fighting in the Middle East has resulted in massive death in Israel and Gaza. This is a political and religious war. The Red Cross has sent trucks of water, medical supplies and more to help care for the wounded. The United States should demand a cease-fire — or insist that the Red Cross pull out. If the violence does not stop, we should pull out all care and resources, store everything in our ships at sea and wait for the smoke to clear.
It may take days, weeks or months. Only then should the Red Cross continue to provide aid.
- Gene Grillot, Kansas City
Classy listening
I started listening to 91.9 FM, Classical KC, in my car during the pandemic after scanning the dial to find something pleasurable in stressful times.
The more I’ve listened, the more I like it. It seems very well programmed and often has interesting thematic classical music. I personally think this station from the University of Missouri-Kansas City is better than the satellite radio classical channel.
Right now, I’m listening at home while reading and too lazy to change vinyl records. Plus, I like learning new music.
Thank you to everyone involved in 91.9 FM and bravo for a splendid addition to Kansas City radio. If I were recruiting knowledge workers to Kansas City, I’d be sure to pick up candidates at the airport with 91.9 FM playing in the car.
- Brad Johnson, Prairie Village
