Apprenticeship Overhaul Plan Gets Mixed Industry, Union Response

A proposed overhaul of the US Department of Labor’s 80-year-old registered apprenticeship system is facing opposition from industry and labor unions alike as participants question whether the sought-after changes will ultimately streamline and expand the system as promised.

The proposed changes, announced in December, would create a new job training model for young adults, change how training providers measure completion of their programs, and develop a national standard of apprenticeship that groups could use as a model for new programs.

The 779-page proposal is the largest effort to update the federal government’s registered apprenticeship program since 2008. It comes as the Biden administration touts the registered apprenticeship system as a pipeline to better paying jobs and a generator for the skilled labor needed to complete various green energy and infrastructure projects funded by Congress in recent years.

President Joe Biden also recently ordered federal agencies to prioritize grant applicants and contract bidders who have hired former participants in the registered apprenticeship system.

The DOL says its proposal will ensure greater clarity and equity for participants, while also setting uniform expectations for how job training programs should function.

But unions, businesses, and nonprofits in their publicly available comments raised questions about whether the changes will limit flexibility in structuring apprenticeship programs—and whether they are necessary at all.

The DOL accepted public input on the proposal through March 18. While the agency received more than 2,100 comments, only 1,000 were available for public review at time of publication.

The agency must review all the comments received on the proposed rule before it can finalize the changes.

Recordkeeping, Standards Opposition

Job training programs receive the “registered apprenticeship” seal if they meet a certain number of standards set by the DOL, and graduates of those programs receive a portable, industry-recognized credential.

In order to stand up a registered apprenticeship, a program sponsor must apply at a state or federal apprenticeship office, identify the occupation that the program will provide training for, and outline how its program meets the DOL’s standards. The process, which also involves getting approval from the apprenticeship office for the skill or occupation, can take weeks to months depending on the nature of the program.

Industry groups that offer such training programs through the registered apprenticeship system oppose many aspects of the DOL’s latest proposal, including new recordkeeping and reporting requirements. They also object to the proposed changes to the minimum time required for apprentices to spend in the classroom versus being trained on the job.

The Associated Builders and Contractors, a construction trade organization that has thousands of members who participate in these programs, organized an opposition campaign against the proposal.

The group has urged its members to submit comments against the proposal and offered them template comment letters, arguing that provisions like these will make it harder for sponsors of apprenticeships to tailor training to their needs.

“The DOL NPRM proposes dozens of new burdensome and costly recordkeeping and reporting requirements,” according to a comment letter from the ABC. The agency estimates those new mandates will cost training providers more than $1.3 billion over the next 10 years.

Apprenticeship programs would also be required to provide at least 2,000 hours of on-the-job training and 144 hours of classroom training under the proposal, eliminating other approaches to determining apprenticeship completion, such as a trainee’s mastery of skills alone.

ABC argued that the proposal “eliminates popular flexible competency-based approaches to workforce development that attract apprentices and employers” into the apprenticeship system.

A California-based affiliate of the Laborers’ International Union of North America agreed that the DOL’s effort to unify the training standard into one approach was unnecessary and should be removed from the final rule.

“Registered apprenticeship programs train apprentices in a variety of different crafts with unique needs and requirements,” the Northern California District Council of Laborers said in its comment letter. “Forcing all programs to utilize a ‘one size fits all’ training approach prevents programs from tailoring their training to the specific needs of a craft.”

Unions Want More

Labor unions—which make up a large share of the training providers in the registered apprenticeship system—had a mixed reaction to the proposed rule.

The national office of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, whose training arm has certified over 250,000 apprentices and journeyworkers, said in its comment letter that it supports the rulemaking, but offered “constructive suggestions to modify and strengthen” the proposed rule.

The union said it strongly supports provisions to prevent “splintering,” which would ban new occupations from being approved for a training program if the job “replicates a significant portion of the work processes from another occupation” that has already been approved by the DOL’s Office of Apprenticeship.

The DOL says this language protects comprehensive training programs from being split into smaller individual skillsets that leave trainees without the full slate of techniques needed to market themselves.

But LIUNA said language that allows for overlap of occupations if it “lead[s] to a more advanced occupation” could “in fact, result in the splintering of an occupation that the proposed rule is designed to prevent.”

The union is also urging the DOL to require programs that are approved on a nationwide basis under a proposed National Programs Standards for Apprenticeship process—which would require states to recognize and allow the program to exist there—to still be required to abide by state rules that require “higher wages and/or other more protective labor standards.”

Questions About Youth Model

Advocates for the expansion of training opportunities also had significant concerns about the proposal’s new “career and technical education apprenticeship” model targeted at high school and community college students.

The non-profit think tank New America, for example, requested information on whether teens and young adults would still be allowed to participate in other pre-apprenticeships and registered apprenticeships, even if their state adopts the new proposed CTE apprenticeship model.

Apprenticeships for America, another group that advocates for skills-based training programs at the federal and state level, also raised concerns that the proposed CTE model’s focus on schools and colleges to reach young adults could leave out youth who are no longer connected to the education system.