Norton Introduces Bill to Ensure Job Training for Minorities and Other Workers in Construction

Norton Introduces Bill to Ensure Job Training for Minorities, Women and Other Workers Needed in the Construction Trades

May 11, 2011

WASHINGTON, DC - Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings, and Emergency Management, today introduced the Pre-Apprentice and Apprentice Training Act of 2011 to ensure that federal highway funds are used to provide on-the-job training to combat the serious training deficit in order to provide a skilled workforce because the current cohort of journeymen and other skilled workers are retiring. The bill also will help counter the effects of past discrimination in the construction industry.

Norton said, "At my request, the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee already set an important precedent by including $3 million of mandatory training funds in the General Services Administration section of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). Also included in ARRA was $20 million for federal highway training programs. My bill is also necessary to finally afford the opportunity for minorities and women to gain a foothold in the high-wage construction industry."

Norton introduced her bill to try to get it included in the new Surface Transportation Reauthorization bill that the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee is developing now. In 2009, Norton got more than 200 apprenticeship training positions funded by the $3 million she secured when her amendment for pre-apprenticeship programs was included in the ARRA. Through her work on the subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over federal construction, the fund for apprenticeship programs in the stimulus package helped D.C. residents, who are now 25 percent of the construction workforce at the Department of Homeland Security headquarters construction site in Ward 8.