Ending Big Labor’s Vise Grip Over Apprentices 

Will Trump Team Green-Light Union-Free Training in 2025?

For nearly 90 years, federal and state laws and regulations have made it very difficult for non-union construction firms and their partners to establish registered programs to train building-trades workers. Consequently, independent builders must often go hat-in-hand to discriminatory Big Labor training and hiring halls to find apprentices who can participate in their projects. 

A key reason why is a New Deal-era law, approved by ideologically blinkered politicians who actually believed they could fight the Great Depression by reducing the number of union-free construction apprenticeships!

Biden Regulations Promoted Big Labor Apprenticeship Cartel 

Under the National Apprenticeship Act of 1937 (NAA), the U.S. labor secretary has wide discretion to allow or stop the registration of apprenticeship programs. 

The incoming Trump Administration will have the opportunity to reverse Bidenera restrictions on apprenticeships and open up new avenues for those who want to work in the construction industry to get the training they need without having to join or bankroll an unwanted union.

Apprenticeships help workers obtain new skills that lead to higher-paying jobs. Unfortunately, the Biden Labor Department (DOL) issued regulations expanding union bosses’ power to block the formation of new apprenticeships. 

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who at the time was the ranking member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee and has since become the Committee’s chairman, blasted the Biden DOL’s 2022 proposed apprenticeship rule for federalizing union bosses’ “veto authority over new apprenticeship programs,” and thereby limiting job training opportunities for workers. 

“The rule would allow DOL to dissolve the apprenticeship programs of employers” solely in response to union bosses’ unverified charges of misconduct, warned Mr. Cassidy. 

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix observed: “Big Labor and its allies often complain about a lack of ‘worker power’ in the job market, yet they restrict apprenticeship programs that expand workers’ skills and empower them to command higher pay. 

“This reveals their true priority. Given the choice between worker power and union-boss power, Big Labor politicians will sell out workers every single time.”

Will Trump DOL Reverse Biden Course? 

During his first presidential term, Donald Trump took a significant step to mitigate the enormous harm the NAA continues to cause when he issued Executive Order 13801, instructing the DOL to create guidelines for industry-recognized apprenticeships. 

Unfortunately, in implementing E.O.13801, then-DOL Sec. Alexander Acosta, clearly acting at the behest of building-trades union bosses, championed the exclusion of builders from eligibility.

Just 12% of U.S. construction workers have chosen to work for a unionized firm. 

“When nearly 90% of construction workers aren’t union members, it is beyond absurd that hardhats should be forced to go through union bosses to acquire the skills they need to advance their careers in the industry,” said Mr. Mix. 

“The incoming Trump White House must repudiate the Biden apprenticeship giveaway to union bosses and improve on E.O.13801 as implemented by allowing nonunion apprenticeship programs in every industry.” 

Though unionized workers are a small fraction of the construction workforce, government policy at the federal and state level frequently forces construction projects to hire only workers who, whether voluntarily or not, pay dues to union bosses.

This enriches union elites, but significantly increases taxpayer costs for new public infrastructure while typically also forcing union-free hardhats to put money into mismanaged Big Labor benefit funds from which they’ll never get back a dime.

Union Bosses Monopolize Government Construction Jobs 

In one particularly blatant giveaway, Cleveland Mayor Justin Bibb recently signed an executive order mandating that union bosses get a piece of the pie on any public construction project costing more than $500,000. He simultaneously shoveled millions of taxpayer dollars into union apprenticeship programs, citing a shortage of trained workers. 

“If politicians are concerned about a lack of skilled workers, they should expand workers’ opportunities to become trained apprentices,” said Mr. Mix. 

“Instead, they’ve restricted the supply of apprenticeship programs so that union bosses can extract more dues money from workers’ paychecks. 

“Fortunately, Donald Trump can reverse this trend and widen U.S. apprenticeship choices, benefiting workers and taxpayers alike.”

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