Tampa City Council member Luis Viera: We must promote apprenticeships, skilled trades

A prime responsibility of government is empowering citizens with the skills they need to be independent and achieve dignity.

This comes down to creating a viable pathway to the middle class for people – and meeting that natural human demand for dignity. Dignity means a quality job that will give you skills to succeed, a good education, good quality health care, time with the family, and retirement security.

One of the best ways to promote this pathway to the middle class and dignity is through the skilled trades.

Our country has a skilled trade deficit. In 2025, the construction industry will need to add almost 500,000 new workers on top of normal hiring to meet market demands. In growing Florida, this deficit can produce acute economic effects.

In Tampa, we worked together to create that pathway to the middle class through the contracting process. In creating a dialogue with labor unions and the construction industry, I worked with city staff to create a unique apprenticeship ordinance. Though ultimately the construction industry did not support the ordinance, it was created out of a dialogue and collaboration that took place about half a year before I introduced the ordinance in City Council. 

This ordinance mandated that businesses with city contracts over $1 million have 12% of their workforce be from a state-certified apprenticeship program. This means the world to young people from Sulphur Springs, East Tampa, and the University Area who dream of becoming welders, electricians, contractors, etc.   

To avoid litigation, the ordinance focused not on a disadvantaged worker provision, but apprenticeships - with the mandate being 12%, not the 15% our friends in St. Petersburg had. We returned retainage withheld earlier to contractors who met the mandate. And “good faith efforts” were taken into consideration for contractors – especially small businesses. 

But the ordinance did have a mandate. Contractors could be, in theory, penalized. And this is where this article comes into play, on the future – or lack thereof – of this ordinance.

During the 2024 session, the Florida Legislature passed legislation that precludes local governments from penalizing contractors for not meeting such apprenticeship mandates.

This effectively repeals the Tampa apprenticeship ordinance. Until now, this was an ordinance that worked collaboratively with job creators to give young people opportunities and promote what I call Tampa Values.

Moving forward

Now that this law is gone, we must do all that we can in the area of training and the skilled trades.

That means doing all we can to empower our citizens with the tools they need to become independent and succeed in the free market. We can support this aim by promoting skilled trades and economic empowerment.

First, we can reward city contractors who meet an apprenticeship threshold or goal with additional points and incentives. Though this falls short of Tampa’s sensible apprenticeship law, it moves this issue forward. We should take all possible steps to promote the skilled trades. 

Second, the city should put tax dollars to work in funding apprenticeship programs.  Targeted apprenticeship programs that are state-certified for youth graduating from schools like Jefferson, King, Wharton, and Middleton will work wonders. We should begin with a targeted investment and grow it from there.

Third, we need to do better with returning citizens. Two-thirds of our national returning citizens who are released will re-offend within 3 years. We need to do better. I will be proposing the creation of a City of Tampa Returning Citizens Office. Two years ago, I worked with groups like Abe Brown Ministries, the Jewish Community Center Federation, Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, and others to pass a Returning Citizens Ordinance to reward contractors who hired returning citizens and “banned the box.” This office can build on this by better formalizing and expanding our efforts. 

Fourth, we should look at people with disabilities and job training. A few years ago, I pushed for the city to make a six-figure investment in a $15-an-hour internship program for persons with special needs. This program needs to be fully funded and fully operational.

And there is something all elected officials, Republican and Democrat, need to do.  It is about our culture and how we talk about the skilled trades. We need to celebrate the skilled trades. We need to recognize how important the skilled trades are to us not only economically, but culturally. A career in welding, carpentry, electrical work, etc. is not only a valued trade but represents a valued American tradition. It is a tradition of providing for a family, hard work, and, quite often, generational legacies in a trade, passed down from parent to child. This is just as admirable as, say, being a professor, lawyer, or doctor. We have to change how we talk about a legacy that means everything to our economy.

It all comes down to dignity – making sure that people have the skills they need to succeed in the free market. If we take these first steps, Tampa will be going in the right direction after this loss of our ordinance.

Luis Viera is the Tampa City Council member for District 7.