Nation's largest trucking industry association accepts '90-day trucking apprenticeship challenge'

Secretary of Labor Marty Walsh and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg have announced a partnership with the American Trucking Association.

ATA is the largest national trade association for the trucking industry. The association will join the Biden-Harris administration’s 90-Day Trucking Apprenticeship Challenge and launch Registered Apprenticeships as a route toward getting more well-trained drivers on the road in good-paying jobs, according to a news release. 

The announcement followed a meeting with the associations’ Chairman Harold Sumerford Jr., President and CEO Chris Spear and other industry leaders and stakeholders at the U.S. Department of Labor’s headquarters, the release said.

The association announced the start of its national Registered Apprenticeship Program for truck drivers, which is designed to enhance industry training and safety standards, as well as to support the recruitment and retention of drivers in good trucking jobs, according to the release. This new program, the release said, will drive adoption of Registered Apprenticeship across the association’s employer membership. It will help to expand access to high-quality, earn-as-you-learn training for more workers that connects them to good jobs, strengthening the nation’s supply chains while expanding the economy.

“We appreciate the American Trucking Associations joining the effort to expand Registered Apprenticeships to meet the needs of the nation’s employers while connecting workers to good-paying jobs and a path to middle-class wages and opportunities,” Walsh said in the release. “What I love about Registered Apprenticeship is that it is a partnership. When employers and industry step up, we are ready to partner and support them to adopt this high-road training model to meet their critical workforce needs."

Buttigieg also spoke about the benefits of the partnership with ATA. 

"The Biden-Harris administration is working with the trucking industry and drivers to quickly launch registered apprenticeship programs that provide high-quality, paid job training, reduce debt for drivers, and increase the number of drivers who stay in the job,” he said in the release. “This will make things easier for drivers and for the millions of American households that count on their essential work."

Learn more about the Biden-Harris administration’s Trucking Action Plan here.