Masonry Magazine January 2001 Page. 16
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These interests are both general and specific: general in terms of the overarching need to foster stable economic expansion and job growth, with low inflation and ready workforce availability (especially in foundation industries like construction, which affect economic activity throughout the economic food chain); specific, due to the government's role as a customer, whose increased costs are borne by the U.S. Treasury and eventually passed on to the taxpayer. The federal government is the world's largest single construction customer.
Any shortage of skilled workers would affect government at all levels-federal, state, and local.
We need government action now. This is a case where government cannot afford to wait until the crisis hits before taking action. Workforce shortages are always a problem, but skilled workforce shortages have an additional vexing characteristic: they require years to remedy. Workforce shortages in the trades will be difficult if not impossible to resolve quickly once shortages become a crisis. There is a long developmental time for masonry skills. The long lead-time itself becomes a barrier to entry into the masonry field, both for the prospective tradesworkers and the companies that must make the investment in training. The only reasonable course from a policy standpoint is to act pre-emptively.
THE NITTY-GRITTY OF SWEA
SWEA is the tax instrument that would help small businesses overcome the impediments to employer-based training. SWEA would allow small business employers a tax credit for training apprentices in any of the highly skilled trades specified in the bill (including the trade of masonry). The credit would offset expenses for each qualifying apprentice up to $15,000 per year, per apprentice, for employment and training costs. The credit would accrue to the employer paying the employment/training costs. The credit would offset costs of training either by employers directly or by multi-employer facilities to which employers send apprentices for training.
This is a credit limited to s to small businesses and as such would be available to companies that employ, on average, fewer than 250 employees per business year.
The credit would be triggered by serious, concentrated "full-time" training of apprentices. As currently drafted, the bill would require that apprentices work at least 2000 hours per year to qualify for the credit. Virtually all time spent by the apprentice working in the trade would count toward the requirement, including classroom time. At the request of some groups that feel weather delays might make the 2000 hour limit difficult to meet, I drafted an existing agreement to reduce the yearly requirement to 1500 hours.
While the 1500-hour requirement should be suitable in most cases for the trade of masonry, some have indicated that other intervening factors might cause problems meeting even this more lenient requirement. It might be possible to obtain a further hour reduction to ensure that serious and reasonable apprenticeships in the trade of masonry would qualify, even in the face of extraordinary delays in a given year. I plan to investigate this further as we prepare for re-introduction in the 107th.
WHO SUPPORTS AND OPPOSES SWEA?
Members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat,
Continued on page 19
16 MASONRY - JANUARY, 2001