Bechtel and an organized labor group have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to revamp apprenticeship programs supporting nuclear power projects.
Bechtel and North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU) announced the MOU in a Tuesday press release.
The longtime builder of nuclear infrastructure and NABTU, a large confederation of construction unions, will look to modernize industry training. The parties said they would identify special craft skills for nuclear construction; work with existing union training centers to update curricula and coordinate recruitment of young talent to build new large nuclear projects and small modular reactors.
“This agreement ensures a continuous pipeline of highly skilled, job-ready craft professionals to build nuclear power’s next fleet of reactors,” NABTU President Sean McGarvey said in the release.
According to its website, North America’s Building Trades Unions is a labor group representing more than 3 million skilled craft people in the United States and Canada. NABTU is composed of fourteen national and international unions
Two years ago, NABTU signed a labor contract with the environmental prime at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge Site in Tennessee.
Bechtel Chair and CEO Brendan Bechtel credited his company’s longstanding relationship with NABTU with construction of the Southern Company’s Vogtle Units 3 and 4,” the first new nuclear reactors built in the country in more than three decades.” The Bechtel chief went on to say: “Today, we’re continuing that work on next-generation technologies like the Natrium Demonstration Project, which represents a new era of nuclear innovation.”