A move by the Biden Administration to expand government-registered apprenticeship programs is meeting with strongly worded industry responses.
Issuing an executive order, Biden said such apprenticeship programs are a good means for expanding equitable training pathways to good paying jobs.
A White House statement said the programs, otherwise known as GRAPs, “will help ensure Americans have the skills and training they need for good jobs” created by the President’s Infrastructure and Investment Jobs Act, among other legislative initiatives.
In its essence, the GRAP effort encourages agencies to “provide preferences on projects to recipients that hire individuals who have participated in Registered Apprenticeship programs and increases worker voice for federal programs and contracts.”
But not everyone is crazy about the idea. The Associated Builders and Contractors is characterizing the GRAPs expansion as “illegal, unnecessarily costly, and burdensome.”
The group further charges that the Biden Administration move will more likely “restrict GRAP growth and exacerbate the industry’s labor shortage.”
The Laborers’ International Union of North America has charged that the effort is unrealistic: “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,” it announced in a statement.
The expansion move will put in place a new kind of job training model, while altering how training providers measure the completion of their programs. The new approach, according to the Department of Labor, will provide greater clarity while also putting in place uniform expectations for how such programs should function.
Other issues: The proposal “incorporates dozens of new record keeping and administrative requirements,” charges Ben Brubeck, vice president of regulatory, labor and state affairs with Associated Builders and Contractors.
The Association of Union Constructors, however, has issued a statement hailing the proposed GRAP changes as “an industry-wide push to ensure not only that the workforce exists, but is as safe, efficient, and skilled as possible.”
Biden’s emphasis on such programs being offered by labor unions, asserts the AUC, is particularly vital: “Union apprenticeship programs have been shown to produce labor that regularly completes projects on time and under budget, while maintaining industry-leading safety records.”
According to the Labor Department, nearly 650,000 apprentices were registered in a GRAP program last year, up from 360,000 in 2015.
By Garry Boulard
