Union Interests in Apprenticeship and Other Training Forms

The major focus of this exploratory formulation of union interest in apprenticeship and other forms of training is on three main environments: craft union apprenticeships, the concern of industrial unions with training concurrent with employment, and the labor movement's social policy interests in training. For craft unions, the apprenticeship system is primarily but not exclusively a method of exercising control over wages by regulating the supply of labor for the craft. The industrial union seeks primarily to fix the price of labor and approaches training as a problem affecting that price, not as a mechanism for the control of the labor supply. Problems of structural unemployment, poverty, civil rights, and economic growth, combined with the availability of public funds for training, have contributed to the expansion of union interests in training.