Leading Practices

Leading Practices

• First signed into law in 1937, this legislation outlines minimum national program standards for registered apprenticeship programs (RAPs). The systems, structures and policies outlined in this legislation provide the framework for local workforce agencies to fund union registered apprenticeship programs (as well as non-union programs) through other federal funds, including the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and SNAP employment and training to subsidize wages and classroom instruction related to RAP on-the-job learning and related instruction.

• In 2020, Virginia passed a law lifting a previous ban on union organizing by municipal workers, thereby allowing localities to recognize and collectively bargain with unions by passing an ordinance. A number of Virginia localities have since passed collective bargaining ordinances, including the city of Alexandria, Arlington County, Fairfax County, Loudoun County and the Richmond School Board.

• Since 2014, the California Workforce Development Board’s High Road Construction Careers project has allocated more than $20,000,000 to labor union and workforce development board partnerships to diversify and expand building and construction trade union membership. The project is expanding union approved pre-apprenticeships that use the Multi-Core Craft Curriculum (MC3) and includes a statewide database of the union validated programs. The initiative is funded by revenues through California Senate Bill 1: The Road Repair and Accountability Act, the Clean Energy Jobs Act Program and carbon market cap and trade revenues administered by the California Air Resources Board. Funds have been used to support local partnerships among workforce boards, unions, community colleges and other partners in East San Francisco Bay, Los Angeles and Orange County and the Central Valley.

• The Maricopa Workforce Development Board partners with building and construction trade registered apprenticeship programs, including the Phoenix Painters and Allied Trades, the Southwest Carpenters Training Fund and the Laborers Training School. The workforce board provides $4,000 through Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) adult funds for related instruction and offers case management and supportive services to apprentices, generally in the first year of the apprenticeship program. In 2019, the US Department of Labor did a case study on Maricopa’s apprenticeship programs and found that WIOA Adult Program Apprenticeship participants had a 94% employment rate during the second quarter after program exit, 22 points higher than the statewide rate for the WIOA Adult Program.

• In 2021, Pacific Gateway, the local workforce development board, partnered in the development and implementation of a project labor agreement with the city of Long Beach (CA), local unions and private developers to fill local hire and other project labor agreements for public works projects. Pacific Gateway recruits and trains diverse applicants and refers them to the Los Angeles and Orange County Building and Construction Trades Council Multi-Core Craft Curriculum (MC3) pre-apprenticeship program at Long Beach City College.