Posts tagged apprenticeship
Commentary: Biden Administration’s New Investments in Electric Vehicle and Battery Production Could Benefit Black Americans
February 2, 2024 // While some have suggested that transitioning to EVs would necessitate lower pay and standards for auto workers, the UAW’s gains to the contrary show how the Biden administration’s clean energy plan is actually increasing the leverage of U.S. autoworkers and helping them retain or regain a foothold in America’s middle class. These new investments and labor protections demonstrate significant progress for American workers and the auto industry relative to 2017 through 2020, which saw multiple U.S.-based auto plants close. What’s more, in U.S. history, 2023 marked the lowest annual unemployment rate for Black Americans. The strong labor market in Black communities makes it all the more crucial for automakers to invest in skills training, outreach, and their workforces in order to find and retain the requisite talent to fill the tens of thousands of new jobs created by these investments. If they do so, and efforts by the far-right to water down or repeal the Inflation Reduction Act are defeated, there is ample reason for optimism that ballooning investments in EV and battery production in Black communities will help sustain the strong labor market for Black Americans in the months and years ahead.
Meet the new Kentucky AFL-CIO president focusing on the future of young workers
January 31, 2024 // One area he hopes to focus on is the cost of living, which he sees becoming more oppressive to young workers. While 22 states will increase the minimum wage this year, Kentucky's minimum wage will remain at $7.25, the rate it has sat at for the past 14.5 years.
How YIMBYs won over unions in California
August 22, 2023 // The Trades acknowledges there’s a shortage of workers for California’s needed residential construction, and they know their existing unionized workforce is getting older. A union-backed study from 2019 stipulated that to meet the state’s affordable housing goals, California would need to recruit at least 200,000 new workers. But the Trades insist things are not so dire yet that leaders need to abandon “skilled and trained” requirements, and they say more people will be incentivized to become “skilled and trained” only if lawmakers guarantee good union jobs waiting on the other end of an apprenticeship. About 70,500 people have graduated from these apprenticeships between 2010 and 2022, according to the California Department of Industrial Relations. In the end, California lawmakers didn’t really have to make a choice, and ended up passing Wicks’ bill, along with another similar bill that included the Trades’ preferred “skilled and trained” language. For now, developers basically can choose which law they want to follow if they want to convert strip malls to housing. (Yes, really.) “AB2011 was a huge victory, but they allowed the building trades to save face by passing both bills,” said David, the YIMBY activist.
A Union View from Inside
June 20, 2023 // UA local unions not only suppress opportunities for nonunion workers but also seek to limit union membership to protect the high earnings of current members; in other words, the UA is doing the exact opposite of what it claims to do: instead of “protecting” workers, the UA intentionally excludes potential pipefitters from the labor market to limit supply and drive up prices. Worse, this exclusion means that less pipefitting work gets done. American industries processing steam, petrochemical, water, and other materials suffer from a loss of valuable skilled labor. Probably the best example of this policy of disenfranchisement is the pictured flier, which I saw inside the union hall. The flier claims that bureaucrats are trying to destroy the UA apprenticeship program. Of course, I was surprised to learn that apprenticeships would be targeted by politicians, since politicians usually support work and skill training regardless of political affiliation. As neither the flier nor the website directly referenced the bill in question, I did my own research. In June 2019, the Department of Labor proposed an expansion of apprenticeship programs, awarding $183.8 million to support the development and expansion of training programs. This included industry, employer, government, nonprofit and union training programs. The United Association told its members that union apprenticeships were being attacked. In truth, the DOL was merely seeking to expand apprenticeship options, including union apprenticeships.
Reuters Analysis: Biden’s climate agenda has a problem in not enough workers
January 17, 2023 // The Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law last year, provides for an estimated $370 billion in solar, wind and electric vehicle subsidies, according to the White House. Starting Jan. 1, American consumers can take advantage of those tax credits to upgrade home heating systems or put solar panels on their roofs. Those investments will create nearly 537,000 jobs a year for a decade, according to an analysis by BW Research commissioned by The Nature Conservancy.
More Cannabis Workers Push For Unionization To Break Industry Barriers
November 29, 2022 // With cannabis workers in their ranks that range from processors, budtenders, chefs, and lab workers to cultivators and delivery personnel, the UFCW International sees their "Cannabis Organizing" campaign as a multi-pronged effort to increase the power of workers' voices, break the stigma around cannabis that exists in communities of color, increase the number of minority cannabis dispensary license holders and level the equity playing field in a rapidly growing industry.
Foxx Op-Ed: For apprenticeship programs to thrive—get employers back to the table
November 21, 2022 // With more than 10 million unfilled jobs in the U.S. and more than six million unemployed individuals, it’s obvious that our current systems need a lot of work. To make matters worse, an enormous skills gap is hampering our country’s economic growth, and America’s federal workforce development systems are doing little to address the problem effectively. These systems are not meeting the needs of workers because of Democrats’ misguided approach towards apprenticeships. Workforce development programs, including apprenticeships, must have employer input. Yet at every turn, Democrats are working to limit the voices of job creators and amplify those of Big Labor.
Biden touts union-backed apprenticeships as he dissolves Trump-era apprentice program
November 8, 2022 // "President Biden and Vice President Harris recognized that IRAPs were a threat to union workers," the Laborers' International Union of North America posted on its website. President Biden on Wednesday touted an expansion of apprenticeship programs that are often run by his union allies, even as he prepares to dissolve a Trump-era apprentice program that unions have openly declared as a threat. Biden delivered a speech at the White House on how his legislative victories expanded apprenticeship programs through his administration’s "Talent Pipeline Challenge." That initiative aims to "support equitable workforce development" in three employment sectors: broadband, construction and electrification, which are predominately unionized fields.
Will offshore wind bring “good-paying, union jobs”? Texas workers aren’t so sure
October 25, 2022 // The Biden administration is gearing up to turn the Gulf of Mexico, long a hub for offshore oil and gas drilling, into a new city of skyscraping offshore wind turbines. Opening up the Gulf to wind development is part of President Joe Biden's goal to employ "tens of thousands of workers" to establish 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030. But in Texas, workers are worried that the new industry will continue the low-wage, unsafe, exploitative conditions that pervade the construction and offshore oil industries there. For the past year, a coalition of Texas labor unions, along with their allies in Congress and in the environmental movement, have been lobbying the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM, to make sure that doesn't happen.
Department of Labor spikes Trump apprenticeship program detested by unions
October 14, 2022 // Apprenticeship programs allow workers to receive training at their place of employment to develop necessary skills and achieve higher wages. Prior to IRAP, this was all done at the federal level through the DOL Registered Apprenticeship Program, which has nearly 600,000 active apprentices and which continues to exist. The majority of workers who participate in this federal apprenticeship program do so through joint labor management, which is a partnership between employers and labor unions. This is in part due to the prevalence of apprenticeship programs in construction-related industries, which have high rates of unionization. These industries are also largely white and male, which goes against the Biden administration's policy of promoting equity through federal action.