Apprenticeship Training Programs

Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) are comprehensive negotiations between contractors, their clients, and trade unions that govern working conditions and hiring practices on specific construction projects.  PLAs now commonly provide that apprentices in certified programs perform a certain percentage of the hours worked on a particular project.   Community PLAs go a step farther by pledging that a percentage of those hours will go to female and minority apprentices.

With innovative new policy of Apprenticeship Utilization Requirements (AURs), unions are expanding access to apprenticeship programs that give valuable and sought-after job skills to thousands of workers

• Apprenticeship Training Programs move disadvantaged workers to good jobs that offer a better future for their families.  
• They guarantee that a substantial percentage of project construction workers – especially low-income women and minorities – would be trainees of state-certified apprenticeship programs that provide training in craft skills, placement and on the-job support.
• Apprenticeship Training Programs offer a bargain:   If contractors require that a portion of all work be performed by apprentices, the unions would do their best to see that every qualified woman and minority is accepted into the unions’ apprentice training programs.
• These Apprenticeship Utilization Requirements usually guarantee that a certain portion, such as 15 percent, of hours worked on construction projects would be provided by apprentices in state-certified apprenticeship programs.

Click here to see a model law on ATP.

There is a choice.  Start the Journey.

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