Colleagues,<\/p>\n
I have received a reach-out from the former Director of Research for UUP, Dr. Tom Kriger, who is presently Director of Research at the North American Building Trades national office. He is seeking our help as the trades deal with ominous signs of impending attacks on their excellent, union-sponsored apprenticeship programs. The details are as follows.<\/p>\n
The apprenticeship programs, which are the lifeblood of the unionized construction industry, are under attack from the Trump Administration.\u00a0 The Department of Labor is implementing something called \u201cIndustry Recognized Apprenticeship Programs,\u201d (IRAP) which are apprenticeship-light type programs. In these programs, the Department of Labor will allow private industry groups to approve their own apprenticeship programs with few standards, little oversight and very light reporting requirements.\u00a0 The interesting aspect of this is that any corporation in US can set up an identical training program RIGHT NOW with similar requirements, but without these new regulatory changes they wouldn\u2019t be able to use the name APPRENTICESHIP and call these trainees apprentices.<\/p>\n
Unions have managed to keep these low road training programs out of construction so far; the Building Trades\u2019 President Sean McGarvey reached an agreement with former Secretary of Labor Acosta to keep IRAP\u2019s out of construction. However,\u00a0 our colleagues in the trades are concerned that the Director of OMB, Mick Mulvaney, and the other strongly anti-union figures in the Administration will move against them and their apprenticeship programs when the final rules come out.\u00a0 At present, we are in the final weeks of a public comment period on the proposed IRAP regulations, which ends on August 25th<\/span><\/sup>. <\/strong><\/p>\n \u00a0The anti-union forces in construction, led by the Associated Builders and Contractors, are behind this.\u00a0 It\u2019s all about getting more cheap labor in the construction industry and having the federal government (i.e., the taxpayers) pay for the training.\u00a0 In the proposed regulations, IRAP\u2019s would not have to pay progressive wages \u2013 only minimum wage, along with\u00a0 minimal safety, equal opportunity, and disclosure requirements.<\/p>\n This is where YOU come in.\u00a0 Please use the link below and submit a comment to the DOL requesting that the construction industry IRAP exemption be made permanent in the final rule. It\u2019s easy to do; it took me barely 5 minutes! And please distribute to friends and family.<\/p>\n \u00a0As we seek to build stronger relationships with coalition partners, we need to be there for our colleagues in the private sector unions. This is a chance to help. Please take a couple minutes to use the link and provide the Department of Labor with a strong statement of solidarity with our colleagues.<\/p>\n