ABC’s Merit Apprentice Program’s 4-year anniversary - by Brian Jurgens

Brian Jurgens, ABC Mass. Chapter

November marks the fourth anniversary of ABC’s Merit Apprentice Program (MAP), which provides companies with access to a pool of work-ready skilled labor and helps level the playing field between union and merit shop companies by fulfilling the apprenticeship requirements needed to bid on public jobs.

Ninety firms are now MAP members. Companies join via an application process. Apprentice candidates are vetted by an Apprentice Oversight Committee made up of John Rich, ABC’s director of Workforce Development, Standards and Compliance, and representatives from eight contractors.

Companies contact MAP for apprentice candidates, who are selected based on the companies’ specific needs. Background information about the candidates is sent to the companies who then review it and conduct interviews. If hired, the candidate becomes an employee of the company. Those not hired go back into one of nine labor pools in Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire.

MAP can free human resource personnel or owners from much of the bureaucratic maze of paperwork, thus allowing them to focus on other important responsibilities. The program also gives member companies with the opportunity to bid on virtually any public sector prevailing wage job – be it federal, state, local or out-of-state – because the MAP is registered with the Department of Workforce Development’s Division of Apprentice Standards.

Applicants are more likely to become successful employees if they have a valid driver’s license, dependable private transportation and an OSHA 10 safety card. All candidates who satisfy these three basic requirements and are high school graduates or GED recipients will have their information forwarded to any company looking to hire trade-specific candidates. Specific employment opportunities are identified either by MAP staff soliciting ABC member companies or by a candidate’s response to a job request from a specific company.

Construction is among the few industries that offer craftsmen and women the opportunity to be paid to learn a trade that will last provide a fulfilling career through apprenticeship programs. And skilled craftspeople are in great demand. A skilled worker shortage is expected to grow to 1.6 million workers in the construction industry by 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

MAP can help your company get out ahead of the coming worker shortage and become more competitive in both the public and private markets. For more information about the program, contact John Rich at (781) 273-0123 or John@abcma.org. You can also go to www.meritapprentice.org.

Brian Jurgens is chairman of the Associated Builders & Contractors – Mass. Chapter, Woburn and is a senior vice president at W.T. Kenney Co., Inc., Arlington, Mass.