From Mike Wiggins, Chairman of the Bad River Band
From WisBusiness.com …
-- A proposed iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin is unlikely to
directly create jobs at Caterpillar Global Mining near Milwaukee, and
even if it did, those workers would likely come from out of state, a
company executive said today.
John Disharoon, vice president of
industry relations for Caterpillar, told the Milwaukee Rotary Club that
mining is a vital industry that produces the minerals and fuels needed
for the world's rapidly growing and increasingly urbanized population.
That means the Caterpillar products being made right now in Wisconsin
are destined to be exported.
"More than half of our sales are outside the United States," said Disharoon.
What tends to be imported by Caterpillar, however, is workers.
Wisconsin simply doesn't have enough workers with the right skills,
said Disharoon. He said local technical colleges aren't teaching robotic
forms of welding and other advanced skills.
"Most of the
people that we get in our skilled trade shop come from someplace else,"
he said. "We're a very high-tech engineering firm. The welding that you
will do in South Milwaukee for us at Caterpillar, you can't come out of a
two-year welding program and walk right out in the shop. We have to
train you on our tools and our processes."
Disharoon told
WisBusiness.com afterward that it's impossible to predict if the
proposed Gogebic Taconite mine would mean new welding jobs at
Caterpillar's Wisconsin plants, which employ about 2,000 people, mostly
in Oak Creek and South Milwaukee.
"Mines open and close every
week," he said. "If this mine opens up and is permitted in Wisconsin,
one is probably going to shut down in Brazil. We don't add production
lines based on a mine opening or closing; we just try to serve the
industry as a whole. As early as it is in this process, not having seen
an equipment order out there, it's very tough for anybody to say how
many jobs are going to be created -- sustained jobs -- if the order is
placed and CAT wins the business."
