Regionally Based Organizations

Regionally based efforts often involve cooperation between non-profit community organizations, unions, and professional associations, local employers, state and local government agencies, and community colleges. Though the parties to these efforts have different agendas, their common interest in the economic prospects of the region frequently leads to innovative partnerships that result in win-win outcomes. A number of these efforts have been highly successful in maintaining and creating high-wage jobs by building worker skills. The most prominent have focused on the traditional manufacturing and services sector. Examples include the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, which involves more than 40,000 workers and 40 firms in the greater Milwaukee area; Project QUEST, in San Antonio, which offers long-term training to enable workers to escape low-wage jobs; and the San Francisco Hotels Partnership Project, which provides training and job referral services for 1,600 workers employed in 12 hotels (Carr 1998, Kazis 1998, Osterman 1999).