Like most little boys, Corey Lever liked trucks and his favorite was always the garbage truck. He loved to watch it roar down his Oakland street, grabbing the cans and dumping the trash into its rear compartment.
After graduating from high school, he bounced between jobs, working for various large companies and attending community college, but nothing was a good fit for the energetic, outdoors-loving guy. He tried to become a garbage collector on his own but didn鈥檛 get hired.
Then he heard about a new partnership between Waste Management of Alameda County Inc., Oakland Civicorps and unions that gives young adults – often high school dropouts from low-income communities – a chance to become teamster drivers after two years of training.
鈥淚t鈥檚 the only city garbage franchise agreement in the country to include a nonprofit job training program,鈥� said Civicorps Executive Director Alan Lessik.
The job-training program comes at a good time for an industry struggling to find drivers.
The American Trucking Association says a shortage of qualified applicants with a commercial driver鈥檚 license has more than doubled since 2011. Its latest annual report says the nation was short roughly 48,000 drivers last year, with projections of a higher shortage in years to come.
The shortfall has become more apparent as the economy picks up, said Barry Skolnick, Waste Management鈥檚 area vice president for Northern California and Nevada.
鈥淚f commercial construction picks up, there are more houses, and (when) routes get bigger, we need to hire more drivers,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 really being driven by the economy. It鈥檚 a great job with great benefits.鈥�
Apprentices work full time collecting organics from commercial businesses in Oakland.
Last year, Civicorps created six apprenticeships in partnership with Waste Management that can lead to lucrative jobs with the teamsters and unions as well as non-union administrative jobs.
Truck driver apprentices earn $20 an hour, and after two years they are eligible for union jobs earning $70,000 annually while working toward a pension, Lessik said.
鈥淭his job is environmentally friendly, and I鈥檓 doing something that kids look up to,鈥� said Lever, now 25 and finished with his first year of training. 鈥淚 couldn鈥檛 get there by myself, and they helped me get there.鈥�
Even getting up at 2:45 a.m. and dealing with maggots – and worse – on the job doesn鈥檛 seem to bother Lever.
鈥淚 am thankful that they gave me this opportunity to do something I wanted to do,鈥� he said.
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