Class Warfare

Unions and ABC jockey for apprentices

By Sean Ryan

Separate but equal is an ugly phrase in the modern classroom.

In 1954, it became anathema when U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote, “In the field of public education, the doctrine of ‘separate but equal’ has no place.”

Nonetheless, it is the phrase trumpeted by the regulators and instructors of Wisconsin’s construction apprenticeship programs. Since 1987, apprentices have had two major apprenticeship outfits to choose from — the Associated Builders and Contractors and the union-controlled system run by the Joint Apprenticeship Committees. While there’s no doubt the two groups are separate, each does what it can to dispute the notion that they’re equal.

The history of formal apprenticeships in Wisconsin dates back to 1911, when the state became the first to create a regulated apprenticeship program. Before that, apprenticeships were between the trainee and trainer with no public third party to watch over them.

It took another 26 years for the federal government to follow suit and give the Department of Labor authority to set standards for apprentices and mentors. Congress based this new legislation, called the Fitzgerald Act, on the apprenticeship programs in Wisconsin and Oregon, the only two in existence in 1937.

For a long time after, organized labor was the only group that could operate construction apprenticeships within the government system. ABC didn't form until 1950, and it didn't get into the apprenticeship business until 1987, when the Wisconsin ABC chapter got its apprenticeship authority from the state. The unions, obviously, didn't like the idea.

"It took a while for that to settle down, and it was a Hatfields and McCoys kind of thing," said Karen Morgan, the director of Wisconsin's Bureau of Apprenticeship Stan-dards in the Depart-ment of Workforce Development.

Almost immediately after the state approved the ABC system, Plumbers Local 75 in Milwaukee filed a lawsuit challenging the program's right to exist. Meanwhile, ABC kept building its operation, and in 1988, the system's first year of operation, it recruited about 200 students who were overseen by one state-wide ABC apprenticeship committee.

That was when relations between the local ABC and the unions' Joint Apprenticeship Committee programs were at their worst.

"At the onset, there was no trust; there was fear and apprehension," said Patrick LaHaye, apprenticeship coordinator for the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College.

The Plumbers' lawsuit worked its way up the court system until the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 1992 ruled in favor of ABC. The following year, DWD and the Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards developed the apprenticeship program that stands today.

That program acts as the great equalizer between the ABC and JAC, creating the uniformity that keeps the "equal" tied to the "separate."

The same concept of uniformity can't be applied to the way apprenticeship programs are controlled across the country. Some are overseen by state government bureaus and some answer to the Department of Labor's Bureau of Apprenticeship and Training. The BAT develops the programs and then steps back, allowing the programs to run themselves with only periodic audits.

In Wisconsin, the Bureau of Apprentice-ship Standards uses its 13 field agents spread across the state to observe the programs in the classroom and workplace. The state makes sure students meet hourly requirements and that the curricula are in line with the state criteria.

Ron “Smoky” Smith (left) receives the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin Instructor of the Year Award from Joe Daniels, president of Madison-based Joe Daniels Construction Co. Photo courtesy of ABC of Wisconsin

Those standards and curricula are developed by one of 12 construction advisory committees, depending on the trade. The advisory committees are made up of union and ABC employers as well as union employees. The committees make decisions by consensus — everybody agrees or nothing happens.

And a funny thing happens when the advisory committee members get together: They actually find common ground despite public arguments that would provide evidence to the contrary.

Morgan said her office has successfully kept the ABC-union stalemates out of the state advisory committees, where the two sides have consistently come to agreements.

"The key is that when we bring the employers together, they focus on training," Morgan said. "What happens outside of that arena is not something that we want to talk about, and it has actually worked pretty well."

And for their part, the state's public employees — from Morgan to the technical college instructors — cling to neutral-ity, having spent the past 11 years fostering a sound working relationship with the competing programs. As the group leaders arm wrestle in the public eye, the people operating their programs in Wisconsin get along quite nicely for the most part.

"If we focus on doing the best job we can to train the workers of this state, we will be able to walk on that minefield and not step on one," said Ronald Butt, apprenticeship coordinator at Waukesha County Technical College.

Is the top-level adversity good for the ground-floor programs? It's a tough question. Marge Wood, Wisconsin Technical College System educational director for apprenticeship, thinks it's wasted energy that makes apprenticeships less appealing.

Tom Derrick (left), vice president of field operations for Derrick Companies, New Richmond, presents the Associated Builders and Contractors of Wisconsin Apprentice of the Year Award to Judd Alton at the May 21 graduation ceremony. Photo courtesy of ABC of Wisconsin

"If it's all spent on infighting, that does not create the kind of environment that is inviting to the public," she said. "That comes down to a union-nonunion battle that has been fought on many different fronts. … That doesn't help anybody. Does that help apprentices?"

Whether or not apprentices benefit from the back-and-forth between ABC and the unions, it's hard to deny that the current apprenticeship scene is calmer than it was 13 years ago. But it's still no secret that the two don't get along, a fact that was reinforced when they renewed their battle over apprenticeships last year.

The national Building and Construction Trades Department fired the first shot in October when it critiqued ABC's apprenticeship graduation rates in "Flawed and Failing Initiatives." The trades collected statistics from federal and local apprenticeship bureaus, including Wisconsin's, and counted student graduations and cancellations. The trades concluded that ABC's cancellation rates were too high, and that the federal program should enforce minimum graduation rates for everyone.
ABC wasn't happy with the report, arguing that it used shoddy math and made an unfair judgment of ABC's programs based on one statistic.

Wisconsin's Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards this year checked the status of apprentices who entered contracts between 1995 and 1998 and found that 69 percent, or 4,304, had graduated. In that time, 58 percent of ABC's apprentices completed the program, and 39 percent cancelled. Among non-ABC committees, which include JAC and some small, nonaffiliated programs, there was a 72 percent graduation rate and a 25 percent cancellation rate. At the end of May in Wisconsin, ABC had 1,252 apprentices and the JAC programs had 4,764.

Still, the people who maintain neutrality between the unions and ABC insist that they are as much alike as they are different. Both programs have their own sets of classroom curricula, but both must comply with the same set of basic state standards.

"The technical content of the curricula are for all practical purposes the same," LaHaye said. "Sequencing — how the actual programs are put together over the five years — is different. That's not to say that one is better than the other. They're just different."

In many technical colleges, one instructor will teach a trade for both programs and sometimes that leads to similar lessons under both curricula. At Northeastern Tech, the state's strict plumbing licensing rules have led JAC and ABC plumbing apprentices to attend the same class.

“If we focus on doing the best job we can to train the workers of this state, we will be able to walk on that minefield and not step on one.” Ronald Butt

"I think there's a lot more sharing between the programs than we officially know about," Morgan said.

They might share, but they'll never miss a chance to distinguish themselves. The union side found just such an opportunity when it developed about eight apprenticeship schools around the state.

These schools are fueled with more funding than the technical colleges and offer more space for training, such as room to build three houses in a warehouse just for practice. And it's a benefit to the apprentices who attend because they get more hands-on learning opportunities than their technical college counterparts.

Those schools are a feather in the cap of the unions, and it goes to show that in Wisconsin, inequality between apprenticeship programs doesn't necessarily mean one program is worse than the other. It's all about one being better than what is good enough already.

It's unlikely that the two programs will ever become one. And if they did, it's uncertain that it would make Wisconsin apprenticeships any better. Some argue that, regardless of what's going on in other states, Wisconsin has found a way to play off the strengths of the competing programs and, out of the friction of their differences, forge better apprentices.

LaHaye likened it to America's two-party government where, ideally, the tooth-and-nail wrangling leads to better public programs for citizens.

"I think the competitiveness of the programs is beneficial to both," he said. "The process has significantly improved, and I think that has a lot to do with the
competition."