13E. Customized Training

What The Law Requires: Customized Training is:

• designed to meet the special requirements of an employer (including a group of employers);

• conducted with a commitment by the employer to employ an individual on successful completion of the training; and

• for which the employer pays for not less than 50% percent of the cost of the training.

Customized Training Protections:

1. Customized training participant shall not displace (including a partial displacement, such a reduction in the hours of nonovertime work, wages, or employment benefits) any currently employed employee (as of the date of the participation).
   
2. Customized training activities shall not impair an existing contract for services or collective bargaining agreement and no such activity that would be consistent with the terms of a collective bargaining agreement shall be undertaken without the written concurrence of the labor organization and employer concerned.
   
3. A participant shall not be employed in a job if:

• any other individual is on layoff from the same or any substantially equivalent job.

• the employer has terminated employment of any regular employee or otherwise reduced the workforce of the employer with the intention of filling the vacancy so created with the participant.

• the job is created in a promotional line that will infringe in any way upon the promotional opportunities of currently employed individuals (as of the date of the participation).

4. No funds will be used for customized training for any business that has relocated, until the date that is 120 days after the date on which such business commences relocation, if the relocation of such business or part of a business results in the loss of employment for any employee at the original location and such original location is within the United States.

Labor’s Perspective: Customized training can be used to expand workers’ access to high wage jobs or it can be used to perpetuate a revolving door of low-wage jobs with low wage employers. Good customized training programs should have the following elements:

• consultation with union whose members have skills in which training is proposed so that training occurs in demand occupations

• concurrence by the bargaining agent where the customized training affects a bargaining agreement

• preference for signatory employers, including those who participate in joint labor-management training programs

• denied to employers who have violated labor laws, civil rights laws, health and safety laws or the Fair Labor Standards Act

• is well matched to the participants’ interests, experience, required working conditions and opportunities for self-sufficiency and family wage/benefits jobs

• has a curriculum that includes the specific skills to be taught

• is of a duration that is consistent with the skill to be taught

• combines 1) expert demonstration, 2) supported practice, and 3) independent work

• contains a high degree of interactive learning

• acquisition of portable skills; training is transferable to other employers

• provides participants with regular counseling and support services

• are monitored to ensure that participants receive appropriate training and employers do not receive unnecessary subsidies. For example, employer invoices for customized training reimbursement should be co-signed by the participant who attests to the delivery of training and competencies described in the customized training contract.

• have strong placement and wage performance standards. Participants are paid at the same rate as others similarly employed.

• have sanctions in place to terminate contracts with employers who abuse customized training.