Southern California Cement Masons Joint Apprenticeship Committee v. California Apprenticeship Council

Appellants Southern California Cement Masons Joint Apprenticeship Committee and San Diego County Cement Masons Joint Apprenticeship Committee (hereafter the Existing Committees) operated the only state-approved apprenticeship training programs for cement masons in *1535 Southern California. In December 2008, real party in interest Southern California Laborers Cement Masons Joint Apprenticeship Committee (hereafter Laborers Committee) applied for approval of its own cement mason apprenticeship program. Once an apprenticeship program has been approved for a particular trade in a particular area, however, respondent California Apprenticeship Council (Council) can approve a new program only if the existing approved program has been found deficient or lacks the capacity or has neglected or refused to dispatch sufficient apprentices to public works contractors in the area.

The sponsors of the proposed new program submitted evidence that (1) public works contractors in Southern California employed cement mason apprentices at a lesser rate than required by the prevailing wage law, with many employing no apprentices at all and (2) the existing approved programs were graduating…