Sheet Metal Local 16 is blowing the whistle on what it says are systematic violations of state law by non-union Northwest College of Construction. According to a complaint filed Sept. 25 on Local 16’s behalf by attorneys Dan Hutzenbiler and Andrew Toney-Noland of McKanna Bishop Joffe, the college is routinely flouting a state requirement that there be equal representation for skilled trades employees on the committees that govern apprenticeship programs.
The complaint is filed with the Apprentice and Training Division of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries and with Oregon State Apprenticeship and Training Council, a governor-appointed body that oversees state-registered apprenticeship programs. Local 16 is asking that they conduct an audit of the committees and impose disciplinary action up to and including removing them as state-registered apprenticeship programs.
Northwest College of Construction manages apprenticeship programs for masons, carpenters, heavy equipment operators, roofers, laborers, sign hangers, tile trades workers, and protective signaling workers (flaggers). Local 16’s complaint comes as the Oregon State Apprenticeship and Training Council considers an application from Northwest College of Construction to start a new sheet metal apprenticeship program.
Oregon statute requires that apprenticeship governance committees have equal representation from employees who have skills in the trade, in order to protect the welfare of apprentices. The intent of the law is that apprenticeship programs benefit apprentices and produce highly skilled journeymen. Governance committees are an important part of that because they decide everything from the apprentice wage rate to how to assess skills, to whether to advance individual apprentices.
State rules specifically say that employee representatives on the governance committees can’t be supervisors. But using public records, Local 16 was able to obtain the names of committee members for seven of the nine programs run by Northwest College of Construction. Local 16 found that the people listed by the apprentice programs as employee representatives include supervisors, company owners, manager-level employees of participating construction contractors, construction contractor office staff who don’t have skills in the trade, and even staff and trainers at the Northwest College of Construction itself. Northwest College of Construction’s training and facilities director Montie Boyer in particular appears as a jack of all trades. Local 16 attorney Toney-Noland says Boyer is listed as an employee representative on the apprentice program committees of at least five different construction trades.
In its complaint, Local 16 says these aren’t just technical violations of the law: “Employer domination of NWCOC’s apprenticeship committees enables other violations that drastically affect the pay, safety, training, and welfare of apprentices.”
The point of apprenticeship is that you’re supervised by journeymen so you can learn and improve, but the complaint says apprentices in programs run by Northwest College of Construction often work unsupervised.
The complaint lists one “particularly egregious” lapse uncovered by the Laborers union: a former apprentice in the college’s apprenticeship program for traffic flaggers told the union that a flagging instructor provided students with the answers to a written competency exam and told students he would not get paid by the college unless the students passed the exam.
“Those apprentices were then awarded flagging credentials based on their exam performance despite having not actually learned and mastered the safety and skills components,” the complaint alleges.
In another case, Local 16 says public records show a Northwest College-affiliated apprenticeship committee advancing an apprentice 5 or 6 steps in a single day. That’s a lot of progress even for a quick learner.
Union apprenticeship training programs view Northwest College of Construction as a competitor, in that it produces journeyman workers that go to work in non-union shops. Because of that, building trades unions want the non-union programs to be held to the same state-mandated standards their programs are.
“It is clear that Northwest College of Construction’s committees are employer-dominated, which means that the employers hold the power to determine apprentice wages, skill proficiency, and when to re-rate apprentices, all without appropriate employee input as required under Oregon law,” the complaint concludes. “That wholesale repudiation of the law leads to apprenticeship programs that do not serve the welfare of apprentices, the needs of the apprenticeable occupations, or the State of Oregon.”
The Labor Press reached out to the Northwest College of Construction for response but did not hear back as of press time.
