Virginia Foxx: “Our colleagues talk a lot about the fact that 94 percent of people who complete apprenticeship programs get jobs…”

“Our colleagues talk a lot about the fact that 94 percent of people who complete apprenticeship programs get jobs immediately, but they never talk about the gold standard they call the registered programs, which graduate only 43 percent of the people who enter them, so I think they are very selective in the statistics that they use. Madam Speaker, expanding funding and giving funding to State apprenticeship offices, in my opinion, is just a hook for more Federal control. And everything about this underlying bill is to have more and more control at the Federal Government level, which enhances the role of unions in apprenticeship programs. That is not the way we should be going. Our colleagues have not noticed, I think, how quickly the workforce is having to adapt to, particularly, technological changes that are occurring in our country. These programs change very, very little over time because of the hidebound unions and the hidebound system that we have. We need the employers on the ground who are dealing with creating new jobs all the time in new industries to be able to tap into their taxpayer dollars that are coming into the Federal Government, which are denied to them unless they are hooked to a union. That is wrong, and we need fair systems. As Mr. Keller and Mr. Perry have pointed out, even the standards set for industry programs that are controlled by unions are different than they are in the private sector.…”