National Apprenticeship Act Promises 1 Million Opportunities, Could Be ‘Game-Changer’

The labor shortage in the trades has the attention of Congress.

The House of Representatives in February passed – in a bipartisan vote – the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021. It was the first time they had addressed the program since 1937.

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Advocates for the proposed law say it will provide significant funding to strengthen and expand the registered apprenticeship program. The money would buttress existing programs and be available to new opportunities and careers, and would create opportunities for minorities and women.

The money in the House’s bill is massive. More than $3.5 billion would be invested in the next five years in the hopes it would create up to 1 million new apprentice opportunities. H.R. 447 calls for $400 million in funding in 2022, with increases of $100 million annually to $800 million in 2026. The bill builds on the existing Registered Apprenticeship program and is a priority of President Joe Biden and his administration.

“I would love for this to work, and if it did it could be a game-changer,” said Chris Hunter, ServiceTitan’s Director of Customer Relations and founder of Hunter Super Techs and the Go Time Success Group. “It could give a boost to what people need now. The ultimate goal in all our businesses is to make customers successful, however that is done. If this can help, you bet your bottom dollar that ServiceTitan will do what we can to make contractors know about it so they can take action on it.

“We have a vested interest to make sure there are positive results from it.”

The bill passed the House by a vote of 247-173, and had 91 co-sponsors, 11 Republicans and 80 Democrats. It has been referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions chaired by Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wa.). Murray, who has long backed a strong apprenticeship program. Ranking Republican member Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) said in March they intended to support and expand the bill, and welcomed input, with the goal of acting at some point in 2021. If action on the law waits until 2022, it then becomes subject to the vagaries of the midterm elections.

Just ‘throwing money’ at the problem?

While the proposed funding total caught attention, there is some trepidation from some of those working in the trades who have seen Congress throw money at problems before.

“When I saw $3.5 billion I almost fell off my chair,” said Chuck Morales, an instructor at Go Time who has more than 22 years of experience training technicians. “But I think that after these five years we’ll still have the same conversations about the labor shortage.”

Because Congress traditionally funds the same programs and same entities. 

“This is not the first time they have funded money into the trades,” Morales said. “But the National Apprenticeship Act seems like they are funding across the board. Nurses are in there, computer techs. There’s so much to divvy up to so many different segments of the market.

“In my experience, all this money is funneled in and X amount goes to the teacher and X to the equipment and X to scholarships and X to build fancy classrooms. But it doesn’t put an extra body in the class.”

Another concern: When money goes to trade schools, community colleges or four-year colleges/universities, students must drop what they are doing to go to school. It takes more time to complete the program than it would at a place like Go Time, which has graduates on the job after one year. A business that has its own school lets apprentices earn as they learn because they work while attending school.

If money goes to schools that spend on salaries and administrators and pretty classrooms, it is money not going directly to businesses that are training while students work, and training faster. And with other careers like winemaking covered, the additional trades means money will be spread out.

“I think anything that’s promoting apprenticeships for students who it makes sense for is a good thing,” said Megan Bedford, founder and chair of Desk Free Nation, a nonprofit focused on drawing more young people into the trades. “Kids seem to want more than they used to. Supporting specialized careers right out of high school, that’s what I love.

“But if it’s not changing a mindset, I have concerns. Winemaking sounds a lot more interesting than plumbing, if you don’t know anything about plumbing.”

Experience over classrooms

Bedford knows of a welding company in Colorado Springs that has a school that provides hands-on experience, where the owner’s daughter is a welder. That experience is invaluable, and isn’t always present in traditional school approaches.

“They’re throwing money out, but they’re throwing it out the same way as when I went to school,” said Morales, who has worked in the trades or taught the trades since 1979.

“Many of those certified schools take two years for apprenticeships,” Hunter said. “Is there any way to have people paid while going through those programs? That’s what I’d want to know.”

The bill has only passed the House, so the final version has to be worked out. At this point, it does seem that private schools like Go Time could qualify, provided they are recognized in their state by a state apprenticeship agency. If they are not, and they wish to qualify, they would have to find out what the state requires. Which means going through those bureaucratic hoops.

“When you jump through hoops, sometimes that means you set up a structure to meet their qualifications, which might not be the structure that we look for to get these guys in the field,” Morales said.  “The bureaucracy could cause us to revamp, to do more paperwork and documentation. It might mean we would have to hire another department to meet the criteria. That’s more expenses.

“Our focus is 100 percent on caring for the students.  To take that money from a national program might mean we’re taking money away from teaching, and our object is to put 100 percent toward the students.”

It is fair to say that the law is well-intentioned. Congress is at least talking about the issue, and Biden has mentioned apprenticeships several times as a priority for workers. Nobody discounts the importance of the discussion, or of trying to do something – especially in a time when many businesses are having a hard time finding younger workers.

Apprenticeships can be the lifeblood of many trade businesses. They provide opportunities for young people to learn and grow, in some cases while working and being paid. Applied properly, the law might open opportunities for careers that might not require the college path. A statement from the House committee said the focus is on creating opportunities for young adults, childcare workers and veterans, with the goal of increasing apprenticeships in fields that do not require a four-year degree.

The United States system often pushes high school seniors to college when they might be best suited to a different path. In England, high school ends at 16 and students take two years of college, ostensibly to help determine their long-term goals. After the two years, they can go to a university – but those two years of college also could be used to prepare young men and women for the trades. In Israel, students do not take the SAT or consider college until they are in their 20s, and on average don’t start until they are 24.

Increased productivity, decreased public assistance?

The House Committee on Education and Labor said the law would yield $10.6 billion in benefits to taxpayers in the form of increased productivity, job opportunity and decreased spending on public assistance and unemployment programs.

“Registered Apprenticeships are this nation’s most successful federally funded workforce development initiative,” Committee chair Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.) and the bill’s sponsor said in a statement released by the committee. “Each year, hundreds of thousands of Americans count on Registered Apprenticeships to access paid, on-the-job learning opportunities and career pathways.

“Investing in Registered Apprenticeships not only benefits workers; it also strengthens our economy and helps employers build pipelines of talented and dedicated workers.”

The U.S. Apprenticeship Program started in 1937 when Congress passed the Fitzgerald Act, named after bill sponsor William Fitzgerald of Connecticut. Scott pointed out the program has not been reauthorized, updated or strengthened since Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill into law.

“This is now more dire since the Covid-19 pandemic has caused significant and lasting hardship for our nation’s workers,” Scott said in the statement.

The Brookings Foundation praised the bill, saying apprenticeships should become more a part of the national “education and training ecosystem.” Brookings does criticize the bill in one regard, saying it needs to better address what it calls the “onerous registration process” in apprenticeships.

JFF (Jobs for the Future), a Boston-based advocacy group that promotes equal jobs and advancement for all, strongly supports the measure, saying it “would provide an influx of funding to modernize apprenticeship and create new career opportunities for millions of Americans.”

“The considerable expansion of apprenticeship, youth apprenticeship, and pre-apprenticeship will open doors to the promise of apprenticeship for millions of Americans,” the group said in a statement. “We urge the Senate to take quick action on this vitally important and modernized legislation.”

The bill had first passed the House in November of 2020, but the Senate at that point declined to consider it.

Other groups that support the House bill include the AFL-CIO, The International Association of Plumbing and Mechanical Officials, the Plumbing-Heating-Cooling Contractors (PHCC), the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC), the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), the Teamsters, the Manufacturing Institute, the National Electrical 3 Contractors Association (NECA), the National League of Cities and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.