Apprenticeships to expand to new industries
WASHINGTON — Apprenticeships took the spotlight this month in Washington as the Biden administration and lawmakers moved to expand job training programs that have proven successful in the Pittsburgh region for years in construction and manufacturing but havefailed to gain much tractionin other industries.
President Joe Biden on Wednesday announced his support of creating nearly 1 million apprenticeship opportunities, with a focus on the recruitment of women, people of color and others who have often been excluded from such training programs.
Mr. Biden, meeting with labor union leaders in the Oval Office, also reinstated the National Advisory Committeeon Apprenticeships — a group with members from unions, employers, community colleges and other institutions — to grow programs in the clean energy, technologyand health care sectors.
The White House actions came two weeks after House lawmakers approved a bill authorizing $3.5 billion over five years for apprenticeships. The support for apprenticeships — arrangements by which workers earn a salary as they take training courses and work shifts— is largely bipartisan, though disagreements about the programs’ structure dividethe parties.
This month, House lawmakers approved the bill, called the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021, by a 247173 vote, which included 28 Republicans joining all voting Democrats. The Democratic-controlled Senate is widely expected to take it up. And Mr. Biden officially endorsedthat bill last week.
Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Mt. Lebanon, said Friday that the bill would back apprenticeships in sectors as varied as technology, winemaking, tree-trimming and senior care. “It’s expanding access to more people in more professions, and that should help people from having to take on too much student debt.”
Among Pittsburgh-region Republicans, Reps. Guy Reschenthaer, RPeters, and David McKinley, R-W.Va., voted for the bill. Reps. Mike Kelly, RButler; John Joyce, R-Blair; and Glenn Thompson, RCentre, voted against it.
Opponents of the bill argued it effectively doubled down on a federally centralized program that “encourages union giveaways,” according to a statement from Republicans on the House Education and Labor Committee.
A spokeswoman for Mr. Thompson, who sits on that committee, said in a statement that the bill “falls short of meeting the needs of workers, limits employers and forces applicants into predetermined programs set by thefederal government.”
Mr. Joyce said in a statement the bill would “reverse improvements made under the Trump administration, embolden union bosses, stifle workers, and kill jobs rather than benefit hard working Americans .”
Republicans supported the Trump administration’s approach to create an entirely new system of “industry-recognized” apprenticeship programs that would not be registered with the U.S. Department of Labor. Those programs would be registered with a network of, essentially, clusters of industry-led accreditation bodies that would maintain flexible standards and pe-rform over sight.
Construction trades in the Pittsburgh region — which fundand manage apprenticeships through a partnership of companies and more than a dozen trade unions — sought an exclusion from the Trump administration program, arguing it wouldn’t provide the same scrutiny as federal apprenticeships programs.
Last week, Mr. Biden reversed the Trump administration’s apprenticeship program because it required “fewer quality standards than registered apprenticeship programs” and failed to meet wage standards. He ordered the Labor Department not to support any such programsthat had been created.
Mr. Reschenthaler, in a statement, said he had visited many of the Pittsburgh region’s apprenticeship centers. Those programs “ensure projects like the Shell Cracker Plant and other critical energy and infrastructure developments are completedon time, on budget and in line with safety requirements,” he stated.
According to federal figures, 94% of those who complete registered apprenticeships are employed upon completion, earning an average starting wage of above $70,000yearly.
The Democrats’ bill, meanwhile, has garnered support from major trade groups, including the American Petroleum Institute and North America’s Building TradesUnions.
Sean McGarvey, president of the building trades group, said in a statement that the registered apprenticeship program — in which his group’s unions invest nearly $1.7 billion a year to fund a network of more than 1,600 training centers — produces the “safest, most highly skilled and productive construction craft workers.”
“We know the registered model works,” he said, adding that the bill would allow it to “not only remain the gold standard in U.S. construction workforce training but will also open pathways for more industries to build productive and highly skilled work forces.”