Separate and not equal

In the July 2004 issue of Wisconsin Builder, Chris Thompson wrote an editorial associated with an apprenticeship story in the magazine by Sean Ryan. The article contained a few misconceptions about the relative value of union and nonunion apprenticeship programs.

First, for clarification, there is no "union" program. The program you refer to is a labor and management cooperative initiative. JAC stands for Joint Apprenticeship Committee. Joint means that an equal number of management and labor representatives decide the course of the apprenticeship-training program. A meeting of the minds between the purchasers of labor (the contractors) and the supplier of labor (the union) assures that a top-quality product is delivered.

Union contractors are not afraid to accept and incorporate the input of those who represent their labor force in training programs. Union contractors are union by choice and see that there are advantages to their relationships with the union. The overwhelming majority will tell you that a readily available pool of highly skilled craftworkers is one of the major advantages. Union contractors depend on this to compete with contractors paying less in wages and benefits. The delivery system for the qualified work force of the union contractor is the JAC system. If the JACs were not delivering a better product, there would not be union contractors.

Equal programs should have equal statistics. Overall, the construction industry in Wisconsin is about 15 percent union, yet the JAC system has 79 percent of all the apprentices enrolled as of May 2004. For the non-JAC programs to be equivalent in the percentage of the future work force being formally trained, they would have to have 31,760 apprentices instead of the 1,252 that they do have. Clearly, a much smaller percentage of the future work force of non-JAC participating contractors will have formal training than the work force of union contractors.

Equal statistics should also include equal graduation rates. Overall, you have a 24 percent better chance of graduating from a JAC program than the alternative. Your chance of graduating from a JAC is 34 percent higher if you are female and 152 percent higher if you are a minority than from the competing program.

There are several possible reasons for this graduation discrepancy. The first might be that selection processes are far less well defined and lead the competing programs to try and make apprentices out of applicants with a smaller chance of success.

Another reason might be that the JAC system has a tighter handle on the training process and monitors its apprentices closely, providing counseling and other services that allow more applicants to achieve their goal of a lifelong career.

Another and more sinister possibility relates to how apprentices are paid. They receive a growing percentage of the established journeyworker wage scale as they learn their crafts. The non-JAC apprentice wage varies by company. The JAC apprentice wage is very public and is equal among signatory contractors. It is possible that the nonunion employers lose interest in apprentices as they approach journeyworker status because of the higher wages.

There may be other plausible explanations, but the far poorer graduation rates do not lead one to believe that the programs are equal.

The JAC system is a well defined, proven system that has delivered quality journeyworkers in Wisconsin since the early 1900s.

The member organizations of the Construction Labor Management Council continue to work toward excellence in construction services for the benefit of our customers and enhancement of our industry.

John R. Topp
Executive Director
Construction Labor Management
Council of Southeast Wisconsin