AMAC Exclusive
With the frenzy of executive orders coming out of the Biden White House, it’s tough to keep track of every left-wing policy action the administration is implementing. Maybe that is by design, as many of them serve the interests not of American workers, but of big business and big government. There is no better example than Biden’s recent attack on President Trump’s apprenticeship initiatives.
The cost of attending a four-year college or university has increased by nearly 500 percent since 1985. Finding an alternative path to success is even more lucrative when one considers the fact that 45.3 million Americans have student loan debt averaged at roughly $37,700 per person.
President Trump understood what many Middle Class Americans have known all along: Not every American needs to go to a four-year university to find a great-paying job.
In many industries, the demand for skilled, so-called “blue collar” jobs is so great that there are currently more job openings than workers available to fill them. As President Trump saw, apprenticeships can play an important role in helping Americans make the most of these opportunities.
Unfortunately, job training programs, and funding, had been controlled for decades by Big Labor bosses. The effect was to narrow or even to destroy the ability of many skilled trades to recruit new employees without jumping through these Big Labor hurdles that allowed union leaders to line their pockets.
The Trump administration worked to level the playing field and dramatically expand apprenticeships by removing some of these barriers, establishing the National Council for the American Worker, and the widely promoted “Pledge to America’s Workers.” The pledge, ultimately signed by 430 major companies, resulted in commitments to create and train 16 million workers with skills-based education and on-the-job learning opportunities.
The administration also created the Industry Recognized Apprenticeship Program (IRAP), a highly successful public-private-partnerships that expanded apprenticeship opportunities even further.
Perhaps the most significant step the Trump Administration took was signing an executive order to expand apprenticeship programs in America.
Fast forward to 2021 and we’re seeing a dramatically different attitude out of the White House. After a year of lockdowns closing more than 140,000 small businesses across the country, the Biden Administration is rolling back the last administration’s successful apprenticeship initiatives and further crushing blue collar workers.
Meanwhile, House Democrats are threatening to destroy one of the most crucial features of apprenticeships: their flexibility.
A successful workforce development program allows employers to train workers in the exact skills they actually need to offer those workers a job. Government bureaucrats in Washington, D.C. can’t possibly have the right information.
And yet a Democrat bill now making its way through the House, H.R. 447, would force businesses to conform their workforce development programs to a one-size-fits-all model designed by the federal government. In addition, the bill would require new apprenticeship programs to partner with existing labor unions to gain approval—a ridiculous and unnecessary burden that is a corrupt giveaway to the left’s political allies.
This bill, and Biden’s apprenticeship rollback, are just another example of the left’s war on the American Worker. This Washington-centric plan—drummed up by Democrats, bureaucrats, and union bosses on some Zoom call—would cripple Main Street America.
For workers, businesses, and industry leaders who care about the opportunity for America’s Middle Class, now is the time to speak up. Tell the Biden administration to knock off the attacks on apprenticeships for American Workers–and protect this critical path to the American Dream.