Journeyman sheet metal worker Jody Robbins, 62, is making one more stop on his path to retirement: a top spot at Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI).
Robbins was hired in May to lead the bureau’s Apprenticeship and Training Division, which oversees about 160 workforce training programs for 10,000 apprentices, mostly in the building and construction trades. The former chief of Washington State’s apprenticeship office, Robbins is taking the helm of a division in Oregon that has fallen far behind in its mission to ensure apprenticeship programs are up to snuff. His new office also has considerably less resources and power than what he’s used to in Washington, according to union experts and Robbins himself.
Though he’s got an eye on his golden years, Robbins says he’s up for the challenge. He plans to retire in three years.
“I am not the future here. But if I can be a bridge to the future and cultivate the next generation of leadership here … I think I’ll consider that a success,” Robbins told Northwest Labor Press.
Robbins will be assisted by the addition of 10 new compliance staffers, who are beginning the enormous task of ensuring that every apprenticeship program in the state is meeting standards. Robbins plans to identify and put lackluster programs on notice as soon as next year.
His top priority: “Protect the apprentice experience in all aspects of it,” he says. “To the extent we do that well, everything else falls into line.”
Robbins isn’t new to Oregon. An East Coaster by birth, he spent much of his childhood in the Willamette Valley. He has been a member of Everett-based Sheet Metal Workers Local 66 since the early 1990s. (He has a withdrawal card while he works in government.) He has worked for the union — at one point, inspecting HVAC systems for free in one of its sponsored programs — and began working for Washington’s Department of Labor and Industries (L&I) in the mid-2000s as a technical specialist in its apprenticeship section.
By 2016, he led that division. In that time, Robbins said he helped build a more diverse pipeline of apprentices by building relationships with schools, unions, and industry groups. He also improved communication and made sure program managers understood changes to regulations, he said.
“I think he left the entire program in really good shape, or he wouldn’t have left,” said Mark Riker, executive secretary of the Washington State Building and Construction Trades Council.
By all accounts, BOLI is in rougher shape than L&I. Staff peaked at about 215 workers in the 1980s. As of early this year, the agency has about half that. The upshot: As of October 2023, BOLI was reporting a 97.5% backlog for compliance reviews of apprenticeship programs. Other key programs have fallen behind too.
Ryan Nielsen, political representative for Laborers Local 737, said some non-union apprenticeships are low quality and failing students at high rates. BOLI needs to step up its enforcement of standards, said Lorne Bulling, political director for Ironworkers Local 29.
But Bulling is optimistic that new leadership, including Robbins, can right the ship. State lawmakers increased BOLI’s budget by almost 10% last year. Robbins said he has hired a handful of new compliance staff and expects to fill the rest of those positions this summer. He says he has a concrete plan for ensuring compliance within the next year.
To get there, Robbins is leaning into the lessons he learned as a sheet metal worker.
“We were always the smallest crew on the job, but got a lot done. I’m going to take that same approach here,” he said.
