U.S. labor secretary pushes for training
U.S. Labor Secretary Eugene Scalia was in Milwaukee on Tuesday to address shortages of skilled workers and a training program at Rockwell Automation.
Scalia toured the company’s Academy of Advanced Manufacturing, a 12week program that prepares military veterans for jobs in areas such as factory machine installation and field-service work.
The labor secretary said Rockwell’s efforts were timely as manufacturers clamor for talent in high-tech workplaces.
“One of the most critical challenges we face right now in job markets is ensuring that we have workers with the skills to fill the jobs that our economy is creating,” he said.
Rockwell, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of industrial automation equipment, has partnered with Milwaukee-based Manpower Group to address the issue.
“Many times, what limits manufacturers is the fact that they don’t have enough skilled workers. People are retiring faster than the population is replacing them,” said Mary Burgoon, who leads the Academy of Advanced Manufacturing.
Scalia, son of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, was named Trump’s labor secretary last fall.
The Trump administration has proposed expanding apprenticeship programs by creating an alternative model in which oversight would be transferred from the government to industry groups.
The objective of the IndustryRecognized Apprenticeship Programs is to ramp up business participation with less government red tape and oversight.
“It would give employers and business associations, unions and others more flexibility in designing and recognizing apprenticeship programs,” Scalia said.
Since Rockwell’s training program was launched in 2017, it has graduated 170 veterans in 10 classes. The company covers expenses including housing
and meals, and it pays trainees while they’re in the 40-hour-per-week program.
“We treat them like an employee, and they work as hard as an employee,” Burgoon said. “But they aren’t trained to necessarily work for Rockwell. Our mission and our purpose is to support manufacturing in general, and veterans.”
About 40% of the instruction time is in a classroom, while the rest is spent in a laboratory that simulates a factory workplace.
The program focuses on veterans coming from technical backgrounds in the military, such as avionics and nuclear submarines.
“We have a diligent and rigorous recruiting and screening process. We are looking for veterans who had quite heavy technical experience,” Burgoon said.
The program’s had about a 90% graduation rate. Some students have dropped out because the pace was too fast for them or they couldn’t meet the instruction standards, according to Burgoon.
On average, the veterans had about eight years of military experience.
The program is not an apprenticeship. The latter is regulated by the State of Wisconsin or the federal government and typically runs for several years.
“We are not looking to replace those two-year apprenticeships,” Burgoon said.
Some of the graduates will become technicians in process controls, instrumentation and electronics. Some may go directly into supervisory roles because they had leadership experience in the military. Most will have job offers before they complete the program.
Trump’s Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Program proposal is still under review at the Department of Labor where it has received thousands of public comments.
“That rule is one we have been working on for the last year. I expect that we will be finalizing it in the next few weeks,” Scalia said.
Labor unions say it would undermine traditional apprenticeships that are partnerships between businesses, government and labor.
There would be little accountability if industry alone creates apprenticeship curricula and sets the standards, said Pam Fendt, president of the Milwaukee Labor Council AFL-CIO.
“It could change to what industry thinks is necessary to become a tower crane operator or to abate asbestos, for example, without government oversight,” Fendt said. “Is that a risk you would want to take?”
The building trades worry that industry’s motivation is to train more nonunion workers. The Department of Labor seemed to ease that concern by exempting construction from the alternative apprenticeships.
But labor unions say they’d rather not see the alternative apprenticeships at all because they would weaken workplace standards.
“I don’t think manufacturing unions want to short circuit things, any more than construction wants to do that,” Fendt said.