On Nov. 6, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Apprenticeship finalized a rule that strips equal employment opportunity and affirmative action requirements from registered apprenticeship programs, leaving only a general requirement to follow existing antidiscrimination law that does not address considerations specific to apprenticeship. Tradeswomen activists, including leaders at CWIT, fought to include these equity provisions in the 2016 rewrite of the regulations to confront the biases built into the apprenticeship system and open debt-free paths to good, high-wage careers for everyone.

The now-missing regulations included commonsense steps to address the historic exclusion of certain groups from apprenticeship, including women and Black workers in the construction trades. Programs that did not reflect the communities around them had to create a plan for outreach, recruitment, retention and preventing harassment. All programs also had to provide anti-harassment training and name a staff member responsible for equal opportunity.

Although the rules were finalized in 2016, they were not fully implemented until after the 2020 election, and many programs had not yet put the planning and staff training in place to deliver on their promise. This rollback stops that progress before it could take hold. Women and people of color who want to enter and succeed in apprenticeships will keep facing the challenges these rules were written to remove. Worse, the rollback is already having a chilling effect, discouraging some programs from making any intentional effort to recruit diverse candidates or address the barriers they face.

You can review CWIT’s individual comments and our joint comments, submitted by the National Taskforce on Tradeswomen’s Issues, opposing the removal of the equal employment provisions from the apprenticeship regulations when they were first proposed last year.

Now that the rule is final, we will work with advocates, allies, and our elected officials to enshrine equity in apprenticeship through law. Get involved by signing on to our advocacy list.

If you are a registered construction apprenticeship program, a training provider or an industry partner that remains committed to equity and inclusion, contact CWIT’s Equity Resource Center at consulting@cwit.org and join us in building workplaces where everyone can thrive.