In a sign that a skilled labor shortage could be a looming barrier to building U.S. nuclear power infrastructure, a contractor and labor union interests are joining forces to mold a labor force equipped for the task.
Bechtel Corporation, Reston, Va., and North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) announced in May a memorandum of understanding to “advance and modernize apprenticeship programs supporting the construction of a new generation of U.S. nuclear power plants.”
NABTU, whose trade union affiliates include International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), sponsors and promotes registered apprenticeship training in an alliance with construction industry partners. Bechtel is one of them, an infrastructure construction firm whose specialties include nuclear power plants, a surging industry sector.
A NABTU press release on the joint effort hints at a growing gap between the needs of nuclear project developers and the availability and technical readiness of a workforce needed to build the infrastructure. “Apprenticeship pathways” need to be strengthened and specialized training to “develop the craft expertise and quality standards required to deliver nuclear projects” will be critical.
To that end, the two will work together to identify craft capabilities needed for nuclear construction and align apprenticeship training accordingly; modernize union training center curricula with nuclear construction methods and technologies; and work with affiliate unions to recruit for “high-skill careers” building large reactors and small modular reactors (SMRs).
Comments attributed to both Bechtel’s chairman and CEO and NABTU’s president suggest that labor concerns are multi-faceted, revolving around availability, safety, precision, specialization, and attention to detail.
“Exceptional craft expertise and a deep commitment to safety and quality” are essential, says Brendan Bechtel, requiring the transmission of “specialized knowledge and skills required to safely deliver these projects.”
By being able to, down the line, supply highly trained, job-ready craft professionals in sufficient numbers, the joint effort, Sean McGarvey says, will give developers confidence that “workforce availability is not a constraint, and projects can be delivered safely, efficiently, and with certainty.”
Those projects are already starting to fill the pipeline, opening opportunities for Bechtel and companies like it, as well as specialized electrical contractors and design firms. Not only are old plants that were decommissioned coming back to life, but new ones are also being built, including those incorporating new technologies that could expand nuclear’s share but require the kind of design construction expertise the Bechtel-NABTU effort hopes to develop.
Bechtel has been on the front lines. It was a lead contractor on the first new nuclear units built in the United States in 30 years, Vogtle Units 3 and 4 for Georgia Power and Southern Nuclear in Georgia. And it is a construction partner with TerraPower on a groundbreaking project that just broke ground: the Kemmerer Unit 1 Natrium plant in Wyoming that is billed as the first utility-scale nuclear project utilizing advanced technology promising greater design simplicity and efficiency.
A Bechtel HR executive, Don Austin, was on a “nuclear resurgence” panel at the recent IBEW Construction & Maintenance Conference. The labor issue was front and center for the panel, which reportedly discussed the growing demand for maintenance and outage work in nuclear plants; workforce readiness for nuclear; improved labor-contractor labor coordination; and the range of opportunities for labor in the nuclear power sector.
In a LinkedIn post, another panel member, Martin Williams, vice president of labor relations at Allied Power, a nuclear construction contractor, related that the panel concurred on the need to address the labor issue. “As demand grows, so do the challenges, including tight labor markets, access requirements, and the need for a workforce that is ready to respond at scale,” he wrote.
There’s an opportunity, he added, to “strengthen coordination between contractors and labor to ensure readiness not only for new construction, but for long-term maintenance as well.”
