The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday confirmed to HR Dive that it won’t be moving forward with its embattled apprenticeship rule meant to update the existing Registered Apprenticeship program.
The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs marked that the rule had been withdrawn on Nov. 27. DOL did not respond to questions asking the reason for the withdrawal.
The proposed rule had been intended to strengthen labor standards and protections within the RA program as well as improve access to the program for historically underrepresented groups, such as women and people of color.
Republican leaders, however, pushed back on the rule’s time-based model for apprenticeship completion, which would require apprentices complete a certain number of hours on the job as well as in-classroom time — thus eliminating the option for apprenticeships to be completed by proven competency alone.
In a February letter to DOL, Republican lawmakers expressed concern about the rule’s “especially high burden on small businesses,” due to its imposition of “difficult administrative requirements ranging from mandatory disclosures for training program sponsors to providing details about the operation, performance, and advancement of the training program.”
In March, 24 attorneys general led by Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti submitted a public comment letter that expressed concern the rule’s diversity, equity and inclusion elements would “treat people differently based on the color of their skin.”
“Americans fought for generations to ensure that people would not be treated differently because of the color of their skin, and the proposed DOL apprenticeship rule flies in the face of those hard-earned laws,” Skrmetti said in a statement at the time. “We should not let race-obsessed ideology interfere with an important and successful apprenticeship program. No American should be deprived of an opportunity because of their race.”
The now-withdrawn proposal came a little over a year after the Biden administration rescinded a Trump-era apprenticeship rule that would have allowed the creation of Industry-Recognized Apprenticeship Programs, which would have essentially been apprenticeship programs run by approved third parties. That rule was officially rescinded in 2022.
