Associated General Contractors of America, San Diego Chapter, Inc. v. San Diego Unified School District

*752 Opinion

By way of Labor Code 1 section 3070 et seq., the Legislature has established a nonmandatory system of evaluating and approving building trades apprenticeship-training programs. Under that system, the Department of Industrial Relations (the department) has the responsibility for setting minimum apprenticeship training standards and approving individual apprenticeship programs. When a program has been approved by the department, contractors on public works projects may pay trainees in the approved program apprenticeship wages and the programs themselves are entitled to educational subsidies.

In San Diego an apprenticeship program sponsored jointly by trade unions and contractors with whom the unions have collective bargaining agreements trains a substantial number of apprentices. In addition to the joint labor-management apprenticeship program, petitioner Associated General Contractors of America, San Diego Chapter, Inc. (AGC), sponsors a separate apprenticeship program which does not involve the participation of building trades unions or contractors who have collective bargaining agreements with the unions. Both apprenticeship programs have been approved by the…