National Apprenticeship Week - November 14 – 20, 2016

National Apprenticeship Week - November 14 – 20, 2016

                                   

This week is the second National Apprenticeship Week. We don’t know if there will be a third, since the first two were proclaimed by President Barack Obama and we don’t know what the educational and labor goals of the new Trump administration will be. On November 17, we celebrate National Women in Apprenticeship Day.

U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas E. Perez has said, “Apprenticeships are experiencing a modern renaissance in America because the earn-while-learn model is a win-win proposition for workers looking to punch their ticket to the middle-class and for employers looking to grow and thrive in our modern global economy”

In proclaiming this week as NAW, President Obama said:

Registered apprenticeships connect job-seekers to better paying jobs that are in high demand, and by providing hands-on experiences and allowing Americans to earn while they learn, they help workers gain the skills and knowledge necessary to thrive in our modern economy. More than 90 percent of apprentices find employment after completing their programs, with graduates earning an average starting salary over $60,000. In addition to benefiting employees, apprenticeship programs also help employers by increasing productivity and innovation with a high return on investment.

A variety of industries -- from healthcare to construction to information technology and advanced manufacturing -- are using apprenticeship programs to meet their workforce needs. To bolster the competitiveness of those industries and others, it is imperative that our Nation continues investing in apprenticeship programs. Across our country, State and local leaders have done just that -- in some cases expanding apprenticeships by over 20 percent in their regions. And since 2014, 290 colleges have joined in the effort to offer college credit toward a degree for completing apprenticeship programs.

The modern apprenticeship is based on a very old system of teaching and educating young people in skilled crafts. The system of apprenticeship was first developed informally in the later Middle Ages and later came to be supervised by craft guilds and town governments. A master craftsman was entitled to employ young people (usually boys) as an inexpensive form of labor in exchange for providing food, lodging and formal training in the craft.

Today’s apprentices are trained by working with practitioners of a trade or profession through hands-on, on-the-job training and often some accompanying study (classroom work and readings). Just as in the Middle Ages, the apprentice repays that learning and experience in exchange for continued labor for an agreed period after they have achieved measurable competency. A typical apprenticeship lasts for 3 to 6 years. People who successfully complete an apprenticeship reach the "journeyman" or professional certification level of competence.

Here in the United States, apprenticeships have fallen under three different federal laws. The first, the Smith-Hughes National Vocational Education Act of 1917 focused on vocational agriculture to train people "who have entered upon or who are preparing to enter upon the work of the farm," and provided federal funds for this purpose. Farming was, of course, the main occupation of much of the labor at that time.

In1933, during the Depression, the short-lived National Industrial Recovery Act authorized the President to regulate industry in an attempt to stimulate economic recovery. Much of the NIRC was declared unconstitutional in 1935, so the FDR Administration went back to the drawing board.

The US Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, the first women cabinet minister ever appointed in the United States, established the Federal Committee on Apprenticeship. Made up of representatives from federal government agencies, the commissioners were tasked to come up with recommendations for federal policies regarding apprenticeships.

In 1937, Congress passed the National Apprenticeship Act, also known as "the Fitzgerald Act," to regulate apprenticeship and on-the-job training programs. The Act established a national advisory committee whose task was to research and draft regulations to establish minimum standards for apprenticeship programs.

The Act was later amended to permit the Department of Labor to issue regulations protecting the health, safety and general welfare of apprentices, and to encourage the use of contracts in the hiring and employment of them. Later amendments to the act created regulations banning racial, ethnic, religious, age and gender discrimination in apprenticeship programs.

The apprenticeship model is an effective way to train people for the skilled jobs trades where hand-on learning is the best way to gain competency. And while schools are doing a better job of adapting this model to their programs – here in New York State, the BOCES Centers have really embraced this potential for educating students – working with a master craftsman is still the preferred method.

But just as it was in the Middle Ages, there are still gender barriers in access to apprenticeships, even though there are no legal barriers. 94% of all apprentices in federal programs are male and 51% of women leave their apprenticeship programs prior to completion as compared with 46% of men.

Women make up just 6.3% of active apprentices nationally. We can take pride that here in the Empire State, women make up 11% of these programs.

The construction industry is perhaps the heaviest user of apprenticeship programs in the country. The US Department of Labor reported 74,164 new apprentices were accepted in 2007 at the height of the construction boom. Yet women represent just 2.6% of construction workers and 2% of construction apprentices nationally.

When you consider that jobs in the skilled trades pay 20-30% more than traditionally female occupations, encouraging more women to go into apprenticeship programs makes good economic sense and cents. And union women earn more than nonunion women in every US state.

As students gain knowledge of skilled jobs through programs like career and technical classes at local Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES) programs that provide work-based learning experience on job sites via internships, they can expect to find better paying jobs with 21st century work skills. With the right encouragement, many of those new skilled job workers will be young women.