(The Center Square) – A pair of electrical contractors in Bellingham think a recently enacted law meant to boost Washington state’s electrician workforce might actually discourage people from entering the trade and negatively impact technical and community colleges.
Senate Bill 5320, passed this session by the Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Jay Inslee, clarifies state law around certification requirements for workers seeking to become journey level electricians. The law went into effect July 1.
North Wave Electric LLC Master Electrician Chris Scherer and Tim Rockwell, owner of Rockwell Electric Inc., are skeptical that the law will achieve its good intentions.
That’s because, according to the two small business owners, any trainee who wants to join an apprenticeship program essentially has two routes: join the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Union or join a non-union apprenticeship program.
One of the main non-union apprenticeship programs is available through the Construction Industry Training Council of Washington, which has six locations across the state: Bellevue, Marysville, Pasco, Puyallup, Spokane and Vancouver
Applicants who want into the training council’s apprenticeship program have to go through an interview process before being put on a waitlist. The program can only bring on trainees who want to become apprentices.
Scherer said the last he heard, the waitlist to join the apprenticeship program was months long, with hundreds of people waiting to join.
“Sen. Saldaña really believes that this is going to expand opportunities, but what it’s done is minimize opportunities,” Scherer told The Center Square in a phone call, referencing the prime sponsor of SB 5320. “You always could have joined an apprenticeship, but we could have – as independents – also hired, but now we cannot.”
Every trainee who is in an apprenticeship program has to attend a four-hour in-person class twice a week for four years, according to Scherer, who said he suspects people interested in joining who live several hours away from a program location will likely pass.
The new law is also hitting technical and community colleges struggling to start their own apprenticeship programs, the two electricians say.
Scherer, who is on the advisory committee at Bellingham Technical College, said the school’s inability to start its own program is due to a lack of state funding and the complications that come with starting a program in general.
“Our schools are going to get hammered, because we have electrical programs that are not apprenticeships,” he said.
The pair contend students would not see any credits transfer over to the apprenticeship program, meaning technical and community colleges with electrician programs are going to become less popular.
Rockwell said a student at a technical college would receive 2,000 hours of lab and classroom time, as well as some hours of on-the-job training. When a student goes to an apprenticeship program, he noted, the qualification is 720 hours over four years.
“You would think that if you graduated from a technical college and you just spent five quarters, or two years in their program, that you would be able to articulate out the lab and classroom time,” he said. “Absolutely not.”
Rockwell added that there have been multiple instances where he had to turn down potential workers because of the effects of SB 5320, including one applicant with more than 2,000 hours of lab and classroom time who was not able to begin work with local electrical contractors. Before July 1, that applicant would have been hired, Rockwell said.
