State may cede apprentice oversight

By Alexandra Berzon

Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Lleta Brown helps answer the phone lines for the state’s Office of the Labor Commissioner. She also coordinates the office’s apprenticeship training program, which provides oversight to the roughly 130 programs that provide vocational training to 12,000 workers in such areas as asbestos removal, child care, welding and cooking.

It’s a bare-bones operation. And it’s getting barer.

In response to a shrinking state budget, Labor Commissioner Michael Tanchek said he might propose eliminating state oversight of apprenticeships.

If it ends, monitoring of apprenticeship schools would fall to the federal government. Critics say the change could weaken enforcement of Nevada apprenticeship laws governing pay and safety.

“The federal government isn’t the best agency to run a local government function,” Nevada state AFL-CIO Executive Secretary-Treasurer Danny Thompson said.

Apprenticeships provide on-the-job training to workers seeking skilled careers, and backers say they’re key to boosting the skill level of the state’s workforce.

In Nevada, apprenticeships are overseen by the State Apprenticeship Council, made up of seven local labor and industry leaders who meet periodically to review applications for new programs. The group also reviews existing programs to see whether they meet state standards and hears complaints from apprentices.

The state oversight program is already working under constraints. Three years ago, the federal government found in an audit that the state has severely underfunded the program. Brown is one of just two people who work part time on the program.

In addition to apprenticeship oversight, the Office of the Labor Commissioner settles wage and hour disputes filed by workers who say their employers aren’t paying them properly (2,787 were filed last year) and sets and enforces prevailing wages at public construction sites.

The entire Labor Commissioner’s Office has a budgeted staff of 20, the same as in 1999, even as employment in the state has increased more than 30 percent. The agency, however, has just 17 workers. Three open positions cannot be filled because of budget cuts.

The office set a goal this year to resolve 80 percent of wage and hour disputes within two months, but it is far from meeting that.

“There’s just more coming in than we can handle,” Tanchek said. “We’re in the same boat as everyone else in state government. We only have so much money.”

To comply with the federal audit recommendations, Tanchek said, he needs $200,000 to $300,000 more from the state to hire several employees and pay for other services. Instead, he is asked to cut more.

If the Apprenticeship Council is dissolved, the federal Office of Apprenticeship would oversee apprenticeship programs in the state, as it does in about half of all states. Two federal employees already monitor the Nevada program and help guide apprenticeship programs through the state approval process.

But some labor and industry groups that provide apprentice training say they fear the programs wouldn’t be monitored as closely by the federal office. The federal government also would not enforce state labor laws, which are stricter than federal laws. Those include a requirement that minimum pay for construction apprentices be higher than the federal minimum wage and a a set minimum on the number of experienced workers who must supervise apprentices on construction sites.

“We think that our additional requirements make for a better program,” said Kevin Christensen, a Las Vegas labor attorney and chairman of the Apprenticeship Council.

Dana Wiggins, who sits on the council as a representative of the construction trade group Associated General Contractors, said, “It’s a significant difference. The council makes the playing field level for everybody” by ensuring that all programs meet standards.

Others, however, say the federal government can provide adequate oversight.

Tina Howell, program coordinator for the Southern Nevada Childcare Apprenticeship Program, said she would rather move to federal oversight. She said the underfunded Labor Commissioner’s Office can take too long to respond to inquiries, and says the council can be nit-picky.

“It’s difficult when they don’t fully understand the program or your vision,” Howell said. “It’s hard. You jump through a lot more hoops.”

Gov. Jim Gibbons would support whatever new legislation Tanchek thinks is best, spokesman Ben Kieckhefer said.

But some elected officials say they would resist the change.

“I think the Apprenticeship Council is very, very important,” said Assemblyman John Oceguera, chairman of the Assembly Labor and Commerce Committee. “I’m kind of offended by the fact the labor commissioner would say there’s no money so we’re just not going to do it. I think Nevadans have been very reluctant to let the federal government tell us what to do on any account.”

Clark County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani, who leads a task force on workplace safety, called the proposal shortsighted.

“The Apprenticeship Council really has had a way of bringing best practices in labor to Northern and Southern Nevada,” Giunchigliani said. “Training is the utmost need for any business, and if you don’t properly train people, that’s where you not only endanger your peers but you lose money.”

In response to those concerns, Tanchek says he is moving toward a proposal that would require apprenticeship programs to pay a fee to keep the council going. That idea was popular at a meeting he held last week for program representatives, Tanchek said.

But Howell said the 91 child-care apprentice programs she oversees in Nevada are small and won’t be able to pay additional fees. Instead, if the state moves to a fee-based system, Howell said, child-care providers would eliminate their apprenticeships. And if that happened, aspiring teachers would find it tough to get the scholarship funding for college-level classes they need to be promoted.

It’s a chain of events she prefers to avoid.

“Basically, the quality of child-care centers would decrease,” Howell said.

Thompson said the labor federation prefers the state pay for the program by keeping money collected in fines rather than sending it to the state’s general fund, which is now the practice.