On Tuesday, President Donald Trump visited the Waukesha County Technical College in Wisconsin along with State Governor Scott Walker in order to promote the state’s century-old apprenticeship system as a solution to a looming shortage of skilled workers.
Michael Rosen, recently retired president of American Federation of Teachers Local 212 in Milwaukee, says that the visit is sheer hypocrisy considering that Trump and Walker have both promoted massive funding cuts for job training and technical colleges:
“It has been an avenue into the blue-collar middle-class for literally tens and tens of thousands of people, but the policies that are being promoted by Governor Walker, right-to-work (Anti-Worker Laws), which will reduce the income of unions which pay for much of this training, eliminating the prevailing wage and project labor agreements, which will drive down the wages, will make it less attractive for people to join, and of course if unions have less money to contribute to the training, the number of apprenticeship spots will also dry up."
"If President Trump and Governor Walker are serious about increasing apprenticeship training, they should put money into it. That is hypocritical. They’re saying one thing while they’re actually cutting the funding for technical colleges. They’re cutting the funding for job training. And it’s outrageous that they’re using the technical college system and its students for a photo-op when they are working to undermine what the technical colleges are promoting.”
http://bit.ly/2smtkq2
"If President Trump and Governor Walker are serious about increasing apprenticeship training, they should put money into it. That is hypocritical. They’re saying one thing while they’re actually cutting the funding for technical colleges. They’re cutting the funding for job training. And it’s outrageous that they’re using the technical college system and its students for a photo-op when they are working to undermine what the technical colleges are promoting.”
http://bit.ly/2smtkq2