The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bill Feb. 5 that would provide funds for expanding or creating registered apprenticeship programs. The bill authorizes $3 billion in funding over five years and, if it becomes law, it would be the first reauthorization of the Apprenticeship Act since 1937.

"Registered" apprenticeship programs are those that register with the U.S. Department of Labor or state agencies. Union apprenticeship programs are registered programs.

Construction unions have praised the bill, which passed the House with a 243-173 vote. To see how your representative voted on the National Apprenticeship Act of 2021, click here or on the map below.

The U.S. Senate would need to approve a companion bill in order for President Biden to sign the legislation into law. Please contact your senators and urge them to support companion legislation. Contact the senators for your state using the links here.

“North America’s Building Trades Unions applauds the bipartisan leadership in the U.S. House of Representatives on passing the National Apprenticeship Act to reauthorize the foundational law on which our apprenticeship programs are built," said Sean McGarvey, NABTU president. "We appreciate their collaborative engagement on this critical legislation to maintain the registered apprenticeship system’s integrity and to ensure that the safety, well-being, and economic trajectory of apprentices are protected."

The House-passed bill would increase 2021 funding for registered apprenticeships by $150 million to $200 million, according to an Engineering News-Record article. To read more about the bill, including funding details, read the ENR article here.

In Florida, some local rules for public projects require that at least 12% percent of hours worked be performed by apprentices who are part of an accredited apprenticeship program.

Page 2 of House Bill 53 reads that the state or any political subdivision that contracts for a public works project cannot require a contractor or subcontractor to: pay employees a certain wage or wage rate; provide a specific type, amount, or rate of benefits; or “train employees in designated programs with restricted curriculum or from a single source.”

The latter item directly attacks union apprenticeship programs. Read more about House Bill 53 here.

Senate Bill 268 would prevent local governments from requiring any training, education, test, certification, or registration for all except a handful of trades.

These bills could become law in this year’s legislative session, which starts March 2.

Find and contact your Florida senator by entering your address here. Find and contact your Florida representative by entering your address here.

Workers in Bessemer, Alabama, could form the first union at an Amazon warehouse in the United States. In an opinion piece that uses the Amazon workers' plight as an example, Bren Riley, president of the Alabama AFL-CIO, writes that the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic fallout have underscored the importance of unions and the need for labor-law reform.

Since the pandemic began, the collective wealth of U.S. billionaires has grown by more than $1.1 trillion, while the collective wealth of the bottom 82 percent of the workforce has declined by 1 percent, Riley writes. He also notes that with the wealth Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has gained since March, he could give all 810,000 of Amazon's employees in the United States a bonus of $85,000 each.

Employees at the BHM1 warehouse near Birmingham are seeking to join the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union. Ahead of a Feb. 8 mail-out of election ballots to approximately 5,800 workers, Amazon launched an aggressive anti-union drive.

Learn more about the effort to unionize here and about the anti-union drive here.

Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, President Joe Biden's nominee to lead the U.S. Labor Department, answered questions during a confirmation hearing Feb. 4, and the Senate is expected to vote on his nomination soon.

Walsh was a member of Laborers Local 223 in Boston. He rose to lead the Boston Building Trades and for 17 years served as a state representative in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He was elected mayor in 2014 and is serving his second term.

The United Brotherhood of Carpenters, the SSMRC's parent organization, stated that Walsh’s working-class roots and knowledge of the construction industry will help him make changes at a Labor Department that, in recent years, has favored instituting regulations that make it easier for employers to deny workers protections under federal law.

When he was the executive secretary-treasurer of the North Atlantic States Regional Council, UBC General Secretary-Treasurer Tom Flynn worked with Walsh. “Mayor Walsh has spent his whole life fighting for the middle class,” Flynn said. “He understands the role that labor plays in ensuring that people can achieve the American dream, and he knows how to bring businesses and working men and women together. We will have a Secretary of Labor that will work hard to make sure that everyone succeeds.”

On Jan. 6, the U.S. Labor Department, under the Trump administration, finalized a rule that makes it easier to deny workers overtime and minimum-wage protections by classifying them as independent contractors. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters, our parent organization, opposed the rule, and the Biden administration has directed a delay in the rule's implementation to allow additional opportunity for review and consideration.

The UBC sent policy recommendations to the Biden labor transition team. Those recommendations included opposing the independent contractor rule as well as a joint-employer rule. The UBC also recommended policies to protect apprenticeships, reverse harmful rules of the National Labor Relations Board, and improve enforcement of wage and hour laws.

The Biden administration has dismissed members of a panel that some labor unions argued was unfairly siding with federal agencies over unions and, according to one lawsuit, seeking to "radically restructure" federal sector labor relations.

Early this month, all 10 members of the Federal Service Impasses Panel, which is charged with helping resolve labor disputes between federal agencies and unions, were asked to resign. Panel members are appointed by, and serve at the pleasure of, the president. New administrations typically replace the panel's members, but the Biden administration took action more quickly than previous administrations.

Read more about the panel and union accusations against it here.