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An Evaluation: | |
Minorities and Women in Construction Trade Apprenticeships |
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Department of Workforce Development | |
September 2010 | |
Report Highlights | |
The Department of Workforce Development’s (DWD’s) Bureau of
Apprenticeship Standards employs 16 staff statewide to regulate
apprenticeships for various skilled trades, including 22 construction
trades such as carpentry and plumbing. In fiscal year
An apprenticeship is a contract between three parties: an apprentice; a
local trade committee, which assigns the apprentice to an employer that
provides Some legislators have expressed concerns that relatively few minorities and women participate in apprenticeships and that there has been inconsistent enforcement of Executive Order 108, which requires apprentices to be employed on certain state construction and highway projects. Therefore, at the request of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, we analyzed:
Participation Levels
Statewide, 94 local trade committees operate apprenticeship programs in the construction trades. DWD requires the committees to maintain information on the number of applicants for apprenticeship positions, as well as the number determined eligible by the committees, but it collects this information only sporadically. DWD provided us with the most recently collected information on 72 of the 94 committees.
Men and women who are racial
or ethnic minorities accounted for
Many minorities and women have
been unable to find employment
as apprentices, even though they
have been determined to be eligible.
Minority participation peaked at
In
We found that
Completion rates were
Oversight of Local Trade Committees
DWD requires each local trade committee with five apprentices or more to develop an affirmative action plan detailing outreach and recruiting activities for minorities and women, but it has not consistently required plans to be updated or to describe specific activities for increasing minority and female participation in construction trade apprenticeships.
We reviewed 18 affirmative action
plans. Although most had been
adopted within the last five years,
one local trade committee’s plan
was more than 14 years old, and
the statewide plan for Associated
Builders and Contractors—which
is used by all member committees
outside of Madison—was created
in 1987 and not updated until
Only 4 of the 18 plans described efforts to track whether employers actually hired eligible minorities and women, and only 3 described retention activities such as tutoring, other educational support services, or exit interviews to determine why individuals left apprenticeships. DWD is required to regularly determine whether each local trade committee is operating in accordance with its affirmative action plan, but neither administrative rules nor DWD’s policies specify how often these compliance reviews should occur. DWD completed 57 compliance reviews within the last three years and 84 within the last six years. Six inaccurate or incomplete reviews were returned by DWD’s central office to regional staff for correction and completion, and four committees were not reviewed. DWD’s most recent compliance reviews indicated that no local trade committees had met their minority and female participation goals but that 59 had made good-faith efforts to do so. DWD is required to either initiate legal action or deregister a committee that is not operating in accordance with its plan, which revokes the committee’s authority to sponsor apprentices. DWD has not deregistered any noncompliant committee, in part because it is reluctant to harm apprentices as a result of doing so.
Complaints and Appeals
Administrative rules stipulate that apprentices have 180 days to file discrimination complaints with DWD. However, DWD recently implemented procedures requiring complaints to be filed within 60 days, which conflicts with administrative rules. We note no discrimination complaints were filed in 2008 or 2009.
If a local trade committee asks DWD
to cancel an apprenticeship contract,
including for reasons related to work
performance, the apprentice may
object by appealing to the Bureau
of Apprenticeship Standards. In
2008 and 2009, the Bureau decided
14 appeals, including 5 filed by
minorities and 1 by a woman.
Resolution time averaged
Neither statutes nor administrative
rules specify time limits for deciding
appeals, but in One of the 14 appeals, as well as a second appeal that has not yet been resolved, involved allegations of discrimination that apprentices made after they had appealed their contracts’ proposed cancellation. We found that DWD does not handle such complaints consistently.
Apprenticeship
Requirements in
State Contracts
Executive Order 108 directs the departments of Administration (DOA) and Transportation (DOT) to require contractors and subcontractors to employ apprentices on certain state building construction and highway projects. Before awarding a contract subject to the order, DOA and DOT must ensure that the projects’ contractors and subcontractors have either been authorized by DWD to train apprentices or have applied to train them. However, they notify DWD only after awarding contracts.
From 2006 through 2009, DWD
determined that firms working
on If DWD determines a firm has not complied, DOA and DOT may terminate the applicable contract, withhold contract payments, or make a firm ineligible for future contracts. DOA took action against only one firm for noncompliance with the order from 2006 through 2009, and DOT has never taken action, in part because DWD has not been timely in determining noncompliance and took an average of 305 days to make a determination. In five instances, firms that DWD had previously determined to be noncompliant subsequently worked as subcontractors on projects subject to Executive Order 108.
Recommendations
Our report includes recommendations for DWD to report to the Joint Legislative Audit Committee by December 1, 2010, on:
We also recommend that DWD
modify its procedures to specify
that apprentices are allowed
180 days to file discrimination
complaints, as required by
administrative rules |
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