National Apprenticeship Act of 2021
Floor Speech
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 477, the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021, which impedes the ability of businesses and employers to fill in-demand jobs.
Legislation deserves a proper, thorough, and bipartisan examination, which is why the House has long established procedures to do just that. Those procedures respect the majority and minority and ensure that both sides are represented.
Democrats are ignoring these procedures and bringing this bill straight to the floor, steamrolling the committee of jurisdiction. Time and again Speaker Pelosi has shown more interest in ``our way or the highway'' governing than upholding the deliberative process of the people's House.
Rushing a bill to the House floor without committee consideration simply because we have gaveled in a new Congress and need something to fill the time on the floor isn't a sustainable path forward under any circumstances. This is particularly frustrating considering the bipartisan agreement that our Nation's apprenticeship system needs to be updated to provide more opportunities for hardworking Americans.
H.R. 447 closes pathways to work for students and job seekers at a time when our Nation is in desperate need of getting more Americans back to work. In recent years, steps were taken to increase the number of high-quality apprenticeships and introduce innovation into work- based learning programs. For example, the Trump administration created Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Programs, IRAPs, which provide another avenue for companies seeking skilled workers who want to develop programs with more input from other industry leaders rather than from the Federal Government.
Democrats like to say that IRAPs are ``untried'' or ``untested.'' Other words for that are ``new'' and ``innovative.''
This bill would take away opportunities for the 131 IRAPs that have been recognized in the last 4 months, the vast majority of which are for nursing credentials. Limiting nursing credentials during a global pandemic is idiotic.
By prohibiting these innovative programs, the bill assumes that a registered program that worked for one employer will meet the diverse needs of every business across the country, regardless of size or industry.
In fiscal year 2019, 252,000 individuals entered apprenticeships, but only 81,000 graduated from the registered system. In fact, there have been, on average, over 190,000 new apprenticeships every year since 2015, but only 81,000 graduate in a year from the registered system. That is a graduation rate of 43 percent, at best. Yet Democrats refer to this program as the ``gold standard.''
Lord help us if this is the gold standard.
Clearly, there is room to improve the registered system, make space for employer-led innovation, and get more Americans back to work. Instead, Democrats assume that simply throwing more taxpayer dollars at a broken system will lead to the creation of a million new apprenticeships. But they have failed to address the underlying problems with the system and, along the way, are shutting down a new, more flexible option that businesses have already found appealing.
Stifling innovation and doubling down on an 80-year-old system that favors union-driven apprenticeships will hurt our efforts to get more Americans back to work. Yet language included in the legislation favors grant funding for entities partnering with unions. Turning the bill's grant program into a union slush fund would also block countless potential for participants from accessing grant money.
Even worse, H.R. 447 will force job creators to deal with overly prescriptive requirements, additional bureaucracy, and time-consuming paperwork on top of the one-size-fits-all approach. It is no wonder this stifling environment has discouraged new and small businesses from participating in the registered apprenticeship system.
Employers know best what skills their employees require to excel in the workplace. That is why Republicans believe Congress should encourage employer-led innovation in the apprenticeship space. Unfortunately, today's legislation falls woefully short.
We know that apprenticeships will play a defining role in closing the skills gap and putting more Americans to work, but only if employees and job creators are given the flexibility to innovate and develop high-quality earn-and-learn programs without overreach from Washington.
Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague on the other side of the aisle says that these grants are not restricted to union programs, or programs that are associated with unions. But the language in the bill is ``to the extent practicable programs should be connected with the union.'' That term is not defined.
The Department of Labor can arbitrarily deny grants to nonunion programs. There is no accountability for this. In fact, there is very little accountability in this bill at all. And the American people want to know where their hardworking tax dollars are being spent. This is just a lousy bill and we ought not to be passing it in these conditions.
As my other colleagues have pointed out, millions of workers will need reskilling due to the pandemic-related job loss and displacement, not to mention the devastating executive orders signed by President Biden which eliminated in one day hundreds of thousands of jobs.
The World Economic Forum discusses this issue at length in their recent report titled: ``The Future of Jobs Report 2020.'' In the report, they point to a double disruption scenario impacting workers due to both automation and COVID-19 workplace disruptions.
This double disruption is further reinforced in their findings that 84 percent of employers are set to rapidly digitalize working processes. And, again, as I mentioned, they don't even take into consideration what President Biden has done to eliminate hundreds of thousands, and it could be millions of jobs.
The demand for reskilling workers is high, and we will be left chasing the need of our workforce with the current one-size-fits-all approach this bill seeks to enshrine into law.
As in-demand skills evolve into the years to come, the skills gap will continue to grow in the absence of forward-thinking reform. Again, I urge my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to join Republicans in creating new apprenticeship pathways through innovative models such as the industry-recognized apprenticeship model. I reserve the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, would you clarify how much time I have remaining.
Mr. Speaker, Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs, IRAPs, which would be eliminated by this bill represent a new apprenticeship model that puts employers in the driver's seat to create programs that meet the unique needs of their workers.
This new, innovative model was spearheaded by President Trump's Department of Labor. Currently, 80 percent of apprenticeships are employer-led and are not a part of the registered apprenticeship model. The registered apprenticeship model is riddled with burdensome red tape which discourages countless businesses from participating.
IRAPs, on the other hand, give job creators the freedom to break away from the Washington-knows-best model and connect workers, families, and communities with fulfilling careers.
This bill looks backwards and relies solely on a model created during the Great Depression. We should be looking forward and not closing opportunities for new models that reach more workers and industries like the industry-recognized apprenticeship model.
Mr. Speaker, there is bipartisan agreement that the National Apprenticeship Act is in desperate need of an update. But the bill before us fails to deliver for students, workers, or job creators.
While Democrats continue with this ill-advised legislation, Republicans will continue working hard to inject innovation and flexibility into the apprenticeship model so that more Americans, many of whom have been put out of work by this very administration, can get back to work.
I urge all Members to vote ``no'' on the bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the en bloc amendment, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, notwithstanding my great affection for the gentlewoman from Delaware (Ms. Blunt Rochester), I have to highlight at least one amendment in the en bloc that I am concerned with.
The amendment offered by Representative Escobar would add Job Corps Centers to the list of education providers that may be considered as partners for program sponsors as they are developing their program.
I understand Mr. Levin thinks this is a great idea, and it is well- intentioned, I am sure. But I do not believe we should be adding more responsibilities to a program that has consistently failed to do that which Congress has already authorized it to do.
For decades, this federally funded program has struggled to ensure the safety and security of students. There is ample documentation about the deficiencies in Job Corps. In fact, over 30 different government reports and audits have raised concerns over the safety and security of participants.
Until we have resolved the underlying problems with Job Corps, I do not believe we should encourage more individuals to participate in the program by listing this as an available option.
The other amendments are largely minor changes to the bill that do not redeem the underlying policy or do anything to seriously reform and improve our apprenticeship system.
While I wish we could have a serious debate about the opportunity for additional reforms in this space that would be supported by a large number of Republican Members, it is clear that Democrats are unwilling to have that conversation today.
Mr. Speaker, I oppose the en bloc amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same, and
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Ms. FOXX. Mr. Speaker, no one on our side disagrees that millions of people in this country now and in the future need constant education and the opportunity to gain new skills.
Mr. Speaker, we all support apprenticeships. I want to tell a little story about how long I have been involved in helping to create apprenticeships. I have a brother who is 8 years younger than I, and it took me 7 years to finish college. I had just barely finished and was working at a new resort in North Carolina, Beech Mountain. He was a senior in high school, and he came to me and said: I don't want to go to college, but I don't want you and mom and daddy to be ashamed of me.
We have created a system in this country where we think people have to have a baccalaureate degree to be successful. That is not true.
I asked my brother what he wanted to do, and he said: I want to be a carpenter.
I said: That is about the most honorable profession in the world. Some famous people were carpenters.
So, I went to my boss. I don't know how I knew this, but I said: My brother would like to be a carpenter. We are desperate for carpenters, electricians, and plumbers here. Could we set up a carpentry apprenticeship program?
We did that with the help of a local junior college, community college, contractors, and AGC. We set up a carpentry apprenticeship program. Seventeen guys, mostly recent high school graduates, enrolled in it.
Three-and-a-half years later, my brother and three other guys graduated with their journeyman license. Now, I consider that a great success. I have been interested in apprenticeships since 1969. I saw how successful they were.
Those are the kinds of programs that we need to be fostering in this country. My brother went on to be an engineer with the telephone company. He never got a bachelor's degree, but he showed me how to use my first computer, taught me how to use it, set it up for me.
My brother is a very successful man, a lot smarter than I am, but he did that by using his skills, his brain. And he continues to educate himself.
What we need is constant education, the opportunity to learn new skills, but this bill and these amendments don't advance the cause. We need to stop looking backward 80 years and look forward to the needs of a modern economy.
Yes, the President hit the ground running. He sure did. He eliminated thousands of jobs in his first week, and he continues to eliminate jobs with wrongheaded policy. This bill and many of the actions of our colleagues indicate how beholden they are to union bosses.
Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the en bloc amendment and ``no'' on the underlying bill. I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. Speaker, this en bloc incorporates eight amendments with bipartisan support. I want to highlight a few amendments from this en bloc in particular.
First, the amendment offered by Mr. Feenstra from Iowa will ensure that the Departments of Labor and Justice collaborate on technical assistance to support the development of related instruction that is aligned with the mentoring program administered by the Department of Justice.
Second, several amendments add industries to the list of nontraditional apprenticeship industries and occupations.
Modernizing the 80-year-old National Apprenticeship Act ought to include apprenticeship opportunities within a variety of sectors. Far too often, society paints apprenticeships as only applying to the trades, which is unfortunate. While there are certainly valuable pathways within those fields, we need to expand the horizons of what apprenticeships are capable of providing for workers.
This is also why I think it is important to call these professions rather than the trades. A broader policy should not be limited by how it has traditionally been viewed or how we speak about it.
Third, the amendment offered by Mr. Lamb from Pennsylvania and Mr. Taylor from Texas includes veterans service organizations in several key places. Because apprenticeships recognize and build on prior knowledge and skills, veterans stand to benefit greatly from these opportunities and should be engaged in the system as much as possible.
Unfortunately, I do need to highlight one amendment that could be much stronger. Our Democrat colleagues have obviously recognized that the underlying bill does nothing to promote innovation in apprenticeships but, instead, simply doubles down on the status quo.
So several Members have offered an amendment allowing for ``demonstration projects'' to promote innovation. Mr. Speaker, this is insulting. This Chamber deserves a real debate as to how to promote innovation within apprenticeships and work-based learning.
Republicans offered amendments to do just that, but they were not made in order. Representative Allen offered an amendment specifically to protect existing industry-driven apprenticeships currently operating out of the Department of Labor. Representative Thompson offered an amendment to create additional innovation in work-based learning.
Rather than allowing that debate to take place and Members to vote on these proposals, Democrats blocked consideration of those amendments and offered this do-nothing fig leaf of an amendment instead. Even the limited authority for demonstrations must still be approved by an advisory committee with heavy labor representation, giving union bosses veto power over any new ideas that might threaten their hold on apprenticeships. In the absence of real innovation, fake innovation is better than no innovation, but we could do better.
Despite my frustrations with Democrats' refusal to debate serious proposals to modernize the apprenticeship program, on balance, this en bloc amendment offers good ideas worthy of support. I support the en bloc amendment and encourage my colleagues to do the same.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I find it intriguing that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle say they are passing legislation that is cost- effective when they are anticipating millions of jobs and generating lots of revenue, especially when they are denying that they are taking money from hardworking taxpayers who want to have apprenticeship programs that are not controlled by the Federal Government, and not allowing those taxpayers--those employers--to tap into a system that has grant programs for them where they are creating real jobs not controlled by the unions. It is just intriguing to me that they could be doing that.
I don't know if I will be here 5 years from now or if Mr. Levin will be here 5 years from now, but I sure hope somebody does a check on the promises that are being made here for all the wonderful things to come as a result of this bill. And I predict that those ``investments'' that are the income being taken from hardworking taxpayers are not going to produce what is being predicted by our colleagues. So it is intriguing for me to hear that. I do hope somebody will be around to check on it and give a report on it.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, I want to highlight a couple of amendments in the en bloc that I have some reservations about and that I think would benefit from additional discussion if this bill is taken up in the Senate.
First, Moore amendment No. 15 creates a new reporting requirement on ``State agencies.'' I don't think new reporting requirements will achieve our goal of increasing employer engagement in the registered apprenticeship program when the underlying bill doubles down on the reasons employers choose not to participate in the first place.
But I would at least encourage my Democrat friends to clarify if they mean for that reporting requirement to apply only to ``State apprenticeship agencies'' or if they truly want to empower the Department of Labor to demand reports of any and every State agency it chooses, regardless of that agency's involvement in apprenticeship programs.
Second, Payne amendment No. 18 may well make it harder to engage small- and medium-sized employers by requiring grantees to have demonstrated expertise in engaging specific types of small- and medium- sized businesses.
Madam Speaker, to be absolutely clear, I believe we should take reasonable steps to encourage grantees to partner with small businesses owned or controlled by women, minorities, or veterans. The underlying bill does this.
Unfortunately, the Payne amendment actually requires demonstrated success in this area, which would likely shrink the pool of grantees significantly, particularly in locations that already offer fewer apprenticeships programs. This is a well-meaning amendment, but as well-intentioned as it is, I hope the Senate will take another look at how to increase the participation of minority-, women-, and veterans- owned businesses without creating requirements that will reduce apprenticeship opportunities.
The balance of the amendments are unobjectionable. They are unobjectionable because they mostly don't do anything noteworthy. In some cases they repeat provisions already in the bill. In other cases they add additional items to existing laundry lists. In short, these amendments are fine. They don't make the bill better in any substantive way, but they don't make it worse.
But, Madam Speaker, the fact that the majority is spending our time on mostly meaningless amendments highlights the fundamental flaw in this bill and process. We are on the floor debating amendments that don't do much, while amendments that could have made significant improvements to the bill were blocked by the Democrats from consideration.
We have talked repeatedly during this debate about how the Democrat bill eliminates existing work-based learning programs at the Department of Labor, mostly nursing apprenticeship programs, at a time our economy, particularly the healthcare sector, needs all the help it can get.
Representative Allen offered an amendment to remedy this flaw in the bill, but my Democrat friends were afraid of taking that vote. So we aren't considering that proposal today.
We have talked repeatedly about how this bill doubles down on the existing flaws of the current 80-year-old system while offering no opportunities for employers or workers to pursue meaningful innovation in the work-based learning space.
Representative Thompson offered an amendment to fix that problem in the bill, but Democrats didn't want to take that vote either.
We have talked repeatedly about how this bill seeks to protect big labor at the expense of workers in desperate need of high-quality apprenticeship programs. Representative Keller offered an amendment and Mr. Perry spoke of this inequity in his floor amendments. The amendment from Mr. Keller would have put union and nonunion apprenticeship programs on equal footing. Democrats won't let the people's House weigh in on that issue.
Madam Speaker, I am going to support this en bloc amendment, but I hope at some point we will have an honest debate about how to truly improve this bill to provide workers the apprenticeship opportunities they need, or at least to protect the apprenticeship opportunities they currently have.
Madam Speaker,
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, our colleagues talk a lot about the fact that 94 percent of people who complete apprenticeship programs get jobs immediately, but they never talk about the gold standard they call the registered programs, which graduate only 43 percent of the people who enter them, so I think they are very selective in the statistics that they use.
Madam Speaker, expanding funding and giving funding to State apprenticeship offices, in my opinion, is just a hook for more Federal control. And everything about this underlying bill is to have more and more control at the Federal Government level, which enhances the role of unions in apprenticeship programs. That is not the way we should be going.
Our colleagues have not noticed, I think, how quickly the workforce is having to adapt to, particularly, technological changes that are occurring in our country. These programs change very, very little over time because of the hidebound unions and the hidebound system that we have.
We need the employers on the ground who are dealing with creating new jobs all the time in new industries to be able to tap into their taxpayer dollars that are coming into the Federal Government, which are denied to them unless they are hooked to a union. That is wrong, and we need fair systems.
As Mr. Keller and Mr. Perry have pointed out, even the standards set for industry programs that are controlled by unions are different than they are in the private sector. There are more regulations on the private sector than on the union programs.
This is not a good way for us to be going in the year 2021. We need innovation. We need to be forward-looking, not backward-looking.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I thank my distinguished colleague for yielding.
Currently, the underlying bill favors grant funding for entities that partner with unions. This would block countless potential participants from accessing these funds and would further cement the program in the way it has been since the 1930s.
If we want to reach 1 million apprenticeships in this country, I fail to see how limiting access by creating earmarks and kickbacks will achieve that goal.
The amendment offered by Representative Hill would make it optional for grant applications to partner with unions. If the majority truly believes that this is not a requirement intended to push more workers into unions, this should be no more than a technical clarification.
Although it would not redeem the underlying bill, this amendment would be a step in the right direction toward opening more apprenticeship opportunities for Americans. I strongly urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
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Ms. FOXX. Madam Speaker, I rise in support of the amendment offered by Representative Stefanik, a distinguished member of the Education and Labor Committee.
Modernizing the apprenticeship system in this country is more important now than ever, as millions are in need of reskilling.
This amendment would drastically improve the Registered Apprenticeship Program while also permitting DOL to pursue models of work-based learning outside the registered system, such as Industry- Recognized Apprenticeship Programs.
The exclusion of this amendment would stop this innovative progress and scrap the 131 IRAPs that have already been recognized, the vast majority of which are for nursing credentials.
Unlike the Democrats' narrow-minded bill, Representative Stefanik's amendment recognizes the needs of students, workers, and job creators.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this commonsense alternative.
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