The American Trucking Associations on Tuesday signed an agreement with the U.S. Department of Labor establishing ATA as an official registered apprenticeship sponsor.
The signing ceremony took place at Department of Labor headquarters in Washington and was attended by Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, ATA President and CEO Chris Spear and ATA Chairman Harold Sumerford, Jr.
As a DOL-recognized sponsor at the national level, ATA can now provide its member companies the ability to offer apprenticeships to job applicants while ATA and its partner Fastport — a DOL intermediary specializing in transportation and logistics — administers the program for the participating companies.
“Today is a great day for our association and one we have been working toward for some time,” Spear said. “This partnership puts us in a stronger position to help guide our members and millions of Americans as they pursue rewarding careers in our industry as commercial drivers, and we hope to build on this agreement for technicians and other trucking industry workforces. We want to thank Secretaries Walsh and Buttigieg for working with us to widen this essential, lucrative and vital career path.”
The move comes after the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s proposal for an under-21 truck driver apprenticeship pilot program that would require carrier participants to register an apprenticeship with the Department of Labor.
ATA member carriers who want to participate in the pilot program when it is implemented, if no changes are made and the registered apprenticeship requirement stands, will not have to go through the full apprenticeship registration process and will be able to sign onto the ATA/Fastport apprenticeship. Carriers will, however, still have to meet certain obligations, such as recordkeeping, “but it’s not the same as starting one of these from scratch,” ATA said in a statement to CCJ.
ATA estimates the trucking industry is short more than 80,000 drivers. Diesel technicians are also in high demand and short supply.
