Military Contruction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. COONS. Mr. President, I rise today to shine a spotlight on apprentices, one of our Nation's oldest forms of education and still one of the smartest investments we can make as a nation. The week we are in the middle of right now--this very week--is National Apprenticeship Week. I am honored to be joined today by Senator Franken, who will also be making remarks in support of the value of apprenticeships.

In this body, we often discuss the importance, the value of expanding early childhood education, strengthening our public schools, and making college more affordable. Indeed, these investments are critical, but let's not forget about what I call the other 4-year degree. It is a degree that guarantees you a well-paying job and a career path after graduation. It is a degree that gives you experience that employers demand and teaches you skills that last a lifetime. It is a degree that provides a paycheck even while you are still in school. And it is a degree that leaves you debt-free. But where is the catch? Well, you might have to wake up early every day. You might have to work on nights and weekends. You will definitely have to complete thousands of hours of hands-on on-the-job training and 4, 5, or more years of work in your trade. In many apprenticeship programs, if you miss even a few days of work, that is it, you are done. On-the-job training, years of work experience, and a limited number of absences does not sound like a typical college curriculum, and it is not. It is an apprenticeship.

Broadly defined, apprenticeships are programs that train workers in highly skilled occupations by providing instruction and on-the-job training. After apprentices complete their programs, they receive journeyman papers and are set up for a job with the employer, the union, or the association that sponsored the program. These programs are long, challenging, and competitive. An appropriate question at the outset is, Do they work?

Well, ask Ed Woodrum, an instructor at the Carpenters Joint Apprenticeship Center in New Castle, DE. Ed tells the story of Scotty. Scotty is a Delawarean who was literally living on the streets, destitute, who was blessed to land an opportunity through the Challenge Program, a not-for-profit rehabilitation and skills organization in Wilmington which I know well and have always supported and have enjoyed seeing the impact of their work, both the materials they introduce and the impacts on the lives of the young men and women they train.

The Carpenters have a partnership with the Challenge Program, and through that relationship Scotty began working as an apprentice with the Carpenters. Fast-forward to today, years later, and Scotty is still a journeyman with the Carpenters. He recently got engaged, he owns a car, and he is living in a townhouse in Wilmington. So do apprenticeship programs work? In Scotty's case, it transformed his life.

If you want to know if they really work, ask Jim Maravelias with Laborers Local 199, also from Delaware. The laborers apprenticeship program requires 4,000 hours in the field and at least five core classes in heavy construction, although most apprentices take over a dozen classes in that time. Jim has seen his laborers journey men and women go on to leadership and management roles in construction as foremen or shop stewards or business agents. Jim knows how important apprenticeships are not only for the construction industry but for the lives and futures of the Delawareans who are so deeply affected positively by their apprenticeship experience. As Jim puts it, through these apprentices, ``we offer them a career, not just a job.''

So do apprenticeship programs work? Ask Tony Papili, my friend from the Glasgow area who runs the Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 74. Fresh out of college with a traditional bachelors's degree, Pip went back to school as an apprentice. Today Pip know from firsthand experience how valuable apprenticeship programs are, which is why Local 74 trains fitters, plumbers, HVAC service technicians, welders, and instrument technicians. Local 74's program is no cakewalk. Once an applicant is accepted, they are committed to 5 years of night classes, on top of the 8,500 hours they will spend in the field learning their trade before becoming a journeyman.

Apprenticeship programs are not just difficult, they are competitive too. Take the program at the IBEW 313 in New Castle, DE, of which Doug Drummond is one of the leaders and a trustee. The IBEW's apprenticeship program is the largest in Delaware today with 120 active apprentices. Each year, 313's apprenticeship program has 2,500 applicants competing for just 1 of 24 open spots. That is a 1-percent acceptance rate.

The fitters, the electricians, and the carpenters in these programs are just some of the 1,100 Delawareans actively working through apprenticeship programs with lots of different businesses, unions, and organizations. Last year, my home State saw 119 apprentices complete their programs and get their journeyman papers. So far, 109 have gotten their papers this year, and we want to see these numbers continue to steadily rise.

Right now, across the entire country, over 440,000 aspiring journeymen are working through apprenticeship programs, knowing that if they put in the time and effort, they will earn an opportunity to unlock a steady, high-paying job. On average, the starting salary for an apprentice is $50,000, which is several thousand dollars more than the average starting salary for a college graduate with a bachelor's degree, and typically there is no debt for an apprentice.

The benefits of apprenticeship programs are sustainable. Over the course of their career, American workers who complete an apprenticeship program can expect to earn $300,000 more than their peers who don't go through a comparable program. If that is not the ticket to the middle class, I don't what is.

I want to commend today the 150,000 employers across this whole country who host apprentices, who partner with apprenticeship programs. Businesses are not doing it as a public service; they are investing in apprenticeships because they typically get $1.50 in return for every $1 they invest. Tony Papili and the members of Local 74 pay for their own apprenticeship program out of pocket. They take money that would otherwise go to a pay raise or their benefits and put it back into the program. The electricians at Local 313 put in over 1 million hours of work a year, and for every hour they work, they put 55 cents back into their apprenticeship program. These are significant investments. More importantly, they are smart investments that are helping to fill a much needed gap in the American workforce with high-quality, high-paying jobs and by helping train workers for skilled trades and the vital manufacturing jobs of this century.

Strengthening America's 21st-century workforce is essential to the competitiveness of our economy in the world today and to the continued revitalization of our manufacturing sector. That is why it is one of the four core pillars of the Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative, which includes a number of additional proposals to strengthen career development and on-the-job training programs.

Last year's reauthorization of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act, which was a real win for job-training programs across the country, included five different policy ideas, many of them bipartisan, which came from the Manufacturing Jobs for America Initiative. I would like to see this momentum continue by making a sustained commitment to expanding apprenticeship programs.

The thousands of hours of on-the-job experience produce journeymen with a keen understanding of the techniques and the tools they need to do their jobs, and it makes them safer, more skilled, and more productive employees. Employers know this too. Electrical contractors in Delaware are hiring journeyman straight out of the IBEW's apprenticeship program because they know they are well trained, well equipped, and ready to work. Same for the pipefitters.

Pip said he is training apprentices to be ``smarter and better skilled than the last generation,'' but he adds, ``I don't think people realize what we do to train these young men and women to become journeymen in the field.'' Pip is right. That is why after I get off the 5 o'clock train I am taking home to Wilmington tonight, my first stop will be a trade and apprenticeship open house at Delcastle High School.

I urge my colleagues to learn about the apprenticeship programs in your States. Go and visit employers who depend on apprentices and talk to your constituents who have gone through these programs. I know you will be impressed.

Too often we define ``education'' too narrowly here. We talk about education as a ticket to the middle class, but we often don't include apprenticeship programs. That has to change. Apprenticeship programs work.

Ed Woodrum with the Carpenters sees it as simple math. He describes apprenticeship programs as ``opportunity plus resources plus support which equals changed lives.'' Ed is right.

That is why I am so proud to join Senator Franken in cosponsoring Senator Murray's bipartisan resolution honoring the inaugural National Apprenticeship Week this week. I am also proud to join President Obama and Delaware's own Vice President Joe Biden in support of their goal to double the number of apprenticeships in 5 years--a goal all of us should share. I especially want to recognize and thank the Vice President for his effective and long leadership in reviewing our Nation's job-training programs and finding ways to meaningfully improve them.

I commend the administration's efforts to expand access to registered apprenticeships to make it easier for apprentices to turn their experience into college credit. Besides apprenticeships, there are very few other Federal programs we know that are estimated to return $27 in economic productivity for every dollar we invest. Budgets are tight today, and we are all looking for smart, cost-effective investments that create jobs and that can help revitalize manufacturing. That is why apprenticeship programs deserve our continued support.

Before I yield the floor, I want to thank my colleague Senator Franken for his passionate, engaged, and sustained leadership on making sure that community colleges and apprenticeship programs work for the working men and women of this country and help create new opportunities for manufacturing jobs that are high-skill, high-wage, and high-quality for folks all over this country.

I yield the floor.

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