Students encouraged to join construction industry debt-free

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @STARADVERTISER.COM Makana Dayton, shown Thursday at a job site, completed his Career Connections high school paid internship this summer, was immediately hired by Swinerton Construction and plans to become a journeyman in four years.

JAMM AQUINO / JAQUINO @STARADVERTISER.COM Makana Dayton, shown Thursday at a job site, completed his Career Connections high school paid internship this summer, was immediately hired by Swinerton Construction and plans to become a journeyman in four years.

Construction in Hawaii is forecast to generate more than $10 billion over the next three to four years as the industry works to recruit a new generation of workers such as Makana Dayton, who became an apprentice carpenter after he graduated in the spring from Roosevelt High School.

Dayton, 18, played wide receiver for the Rams’ football team and originally had planned to attend the University of Nevada Las Vegas to study kinesiology.

“It didn’t work out with my grades, and I was searching for scholarships, ” Dayton said.

Now, four months on the job, he makes $21.70 an hour and has no student debt.

When he reaches journeyman status in six years, Dayton will earn $52 an hour for a total of $82 an hour when benefits are included, according to Pacific Resource Partnership, the advocacy arm of the Hawaii Carpenters Union.

There are currently 1, 523 apprentices working in Hawaii, and 576 are between the ages of 18 to 24, according to PRP.

But the industry needs more laborers to keep up with current and upcoming projects, while older, seasoned journeyman are able to retire in their 50s with “good pensions, ” said Dale Sakamoto Yoneda, president of general contractor S &M Sakamoto Inc.

Her company employs nearly 30 unionized construction workers and has another 10 office employees.

By working in construction free of student debt, Yoneda said, her unionized employees “make a living wage that they and their families can stay and live on in Hawaii.”

“They don’t have to worry where their money’s coming from, have good pension plans with annuities and don’t have to work until they’re in their 60s and 70s to retire, ” she said. “Some of our apprentices are now foremen. And when they did buy a home, you see that joy and that pride in them. It’s that joy and pride of buying a home.”

On Thursday and Friday approximately 1, 200 public, private and charter middle and high school students are scheduled to attend Hawai ‘i Construction Career Days at Aloha Stadium’s parking lot.

They’ll each receive a 58-page report chock-full of data on the economic forecast for Hawaii’s construction industry and what organizers say are the financial benefits of joining the construction industry, such as being able to earn middle-­class salaries.

The event is sponsored by the state Department of Transportation, trade and labor organizations, private construction companies and corporations.

Recruiting a younger generation of union construction workers in Hawaii comes amid a global labor shortage and an emphasis on rebuilding the middle class locally and across the nation, especially emphasized by Vice President Kamala Harris as she runs for president.

At August’s Democratic National Convention, unionized labor played a prominent role all week, including Hawaii labor leaders representing blue-and white-­collar workers who attended as Hawaii delegates. They joined union members from around the country celebrating their unions.

At the same time, unionized employees continue to go on strike to demand higher pay, better staffing and other working conditions including, in some cases, profit sharing.

Just this month, unionized nurses and hotel workers went on strike in Hawaii, along with Boeing employees on the mainland last week, while efforts continue to unionize other industries around the country.

Helping local families afford to live in Hawaii remains a focus for the state Legislature, which passed unprecedented tax cuts this session that were signed by Gov. Josh Green.

Green, the Legislature and the counties at the same time are trying to create 50, 000 more affordable homes across the state to keep young families and kupuna from joining the exodus of people leaving for the mainland.

In 1940, Yoneda’s grandfather Shuichi “Pete ” Sakamoto founded S &M Saka ­moto Inc. before going on to fight with the 442nd Regimental Combat Team in Europe.

Then Yoneda’s father and cousins took over the company.

Now Yoneda’s in charge after graduating from the University of Hawaii’s Shidler College of Business with a degree in marketing and management.

She now works with her cousins and husband Ryan Yoneda—the company’s safety director—and their 22-year-daughter, Bree, who also graduated from Shidler with the same degree as her mother and works in the company’s office in Kalihi.

“We have a good relationship with the unions, ” Yo ­neda said. “They’ve been good to us and we work well together.”

Yoneda acknowledged that some older construction workers who did not go to college want their children to go to college because “you think, ‘My kid should go to college.’ You’re always trying to make life better for your children.”

But she serves on the board that organizes the upcoming Hawai ‘i Construction Career Days and said the construction industry has a strong argument to make for young people to stay in Hawaii and make a decent, debt-free living.

Dayton works for a dif ­ferent company, which is building graduate student housing at UH near the East-West Center.

At Radford he took a basic introduction to construction class taught by his godfather.

“I loved it, ” Dayton said. “It was the right class for me. I got to learn in the shop. He knew that I wasn’t looking into construction as a career, but he let me know it was always a path I could take.”

Then, Dayton said, “three weeks before graduation I came to the realization that college wasn’t going to work out for me. I was struggling about how I was going to make it in Hawaii with the cost of living so high.”

He then did a six-week construction internship that pays eligible high school juniors and seniors $15 an hour.

The instructors “made it known that they would be hard and tough, but they were there to teach, ” Dayton said. “They took me under their wings.”

He described the internship as “old school.”

“I loved it, ” Dayton said. “I wouldn’t change anything about it. I’m glad they had that old-school mindset.”

Now, four months into his full-time job, Dayton said that becoming a journeyman in six years “is totally accomplishable.”

At 5 foot, 6 inches and 143 pounds—“150 pounds soaking wet ”—Dayton said that on the construction site “I’m not the biggest. I’m not the smartest. But I can give them hard work every day. If you need something, I can do it.”

At the age of 18, Dayton still lives at home—“no shame in that, ” he said.

But now Dayton can see himself starting a family one day, complete with a home of his own.

“The ultimate goal is to be a homeowner, ” he said. “Owning a home in Hawaii is the life.”