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Shoddy Worker Training Program Backed by Gov. Schwarzenegger Faces Legal Challenge

**News Release for Wednesday, April 6, 2005**

(Oakland, CA) - This Wednesday, a committee backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration faces accusations that it runs a low-quality training program that benefits the governors biggest donors-builders and developers. The committee stands accused of providing cheap labor with "apprentice" workers who get paid less than half the prevailing wage, yet receive little real training from the program.

A three-member panel of California Apprenticeship Council will hear the case against the Sacramento-based Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors Plumbers Unilateral Apprentice Committee (PHCC PUAC) on April 6 in Oakland. At the end of the month the full Council will decide whether Schwarzenegger's approval of the program was illegal.

The lead challenger in the case is the California State Pipe Trades Council, which graduates more than 3,000 apprentices every year from its five-year apprenticeship program at 47 training facilities across the state. The Pipe Trades Council asserts that PHCC PUAC is running an illegal apprenticeship training program that cuts sweetheart deals for non-union contractors and a raw deal for apprentice plumbers and pipe fitters who receive apprenticeship wages but are thrust into work environments without proper training.

"For Californians who aren't college-bound, apprentice training is one of the best and most secure paths to providing for their future and for their families," said Ted Reed, Executive Director of the California State Pipe Trades Council. "When substandard programs cheat apprentice workers out of their training and jeopardize the safety of homes and office buildings, everybody loses-except the governor's biggest contributors."

On state and federal projects, contractors must pay the prevailing wage with just one exception: apprentices. Apprentices typically start out at 40 percent of the prevailing wage in exchange for on-the-job and classroom training. Some non-union contractors like PHCC have taken advantage of these reduced wages by packing their work crews with so-called apprentices, who are in fact being forced to take on skilled work that they are not getting paid for, with little to no supervision from journeymen.

Stefan Schnell was a PHCC-PUAC apprentice before joining a Pipe Trades apprenticeship program in San Mateo County. "There is no comparison between the PHCC and the State Pipe Trades apprentice program I'm in now. The PHCC instructors were not in the plumbing trade on a day-to-day basis and couldn't teach 85% of what I'm learning at the union program. And the Pipe Trades' facilities are world class, with all the tools we'll use on the job and working models of all kinds of plumbing and piping systems. PHCC just didn't have that."

The only way for a non-union contractor to cheat, is to inflate the number of apprentices on the job.

The Council points to PHCC's own marketing materials that offer builders and developers a loophole in the state-mandated wages. In its internet advertising, PCHH PUAC said that "the use of an apprentice allows a contractor to lower its labor costs by having a registered apprentice on the job."

The Council has also presented evidence in the case to show that PHCC employs crews made up entirely of "apprentices" without any journeymen to oversee the training or quality of the work. In a legitimate operation, apprentices make up a small percentage of any work crew so journeymen can ensure quality control while apprentices learn on the job. Records show that PHCC also has a very low graduation rate.

Many unions, including the California State Pipe Trades Council, have run apprentice programs for more than a century. These union-run programs, paid for by union members, enjoy a solid reputation as having among the best-run apprentice training courses and facilities in the state with high graduation rates and a track record of producing new generations of skilled trade workers.

"Keeping the California economy growing requires a well-trained and fairly paid workforce," said Reed. "When the state knowingly allows a contractor to run a sham apprentice program, it puts the economy, consumers and workers at risk."

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