Journeyworker vs. Registered Apprentice on the WH-347

Column (2) on page 1 is headed with two options: (J) JOURNEYWORKER and (RA) REGISTERED APPRENTICE. Every worker row gets one. A journeyworker is paid the full predetermined rate for their classification under the applicable wage determination. A registered apprentice may be paid a percentage of that rate — but only if the registration conditions are satisfied.

29 CFR 5.5(a)(4)(i) states it directly: "Apprentices will be permitted to work at less than the predetermined rate for the work they perform when they are employed pursuant to and individually registered in a bona fide apprenticeship program registered with the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration, Office of Apprenticeship (OA), or with a State Apprenticeship Agency recognized by the OA." Three phrases carry the weight: individually registered, bona fide, and registered with the OA or a recognised State Apprenticeship Agency.

It is not enough that your company participates in an apprenticeship programme, or that the classification exists within one. The individual worker has to be registered. This is the most common way an apprentice rate turns out to have been used incorrectly: someone is working as an apprentice in every practical sense, learning the trade under supervision, but their paperwork was never completed or lapsed. If the registration is not in place, the predetermined rate applies for the hours worked.

Page 2 of the form asks you to tick which. The apprenticeship table has three rows, and each row takes the programme name, a tick for either OA or SAA, and the labour classification. Two practical implications. First, you need to know which body registered your programme, which is not always obvious from the paperwork the programme sends you. Second, three rows means three distinct programmes per sheet — a payroll drawing apprentices from more programmes than that needs more sheets or a conversation with the agency.

An apprentice's rate is generally expressed as a percentage of the journeyworker rate for the classification, stepping up as the apprentice progresses through the programme. The percentage and the step come from the registered programme, not from what seems reasonable. When a reviewer checks an apprentice row, the arithmetic they can do without any extra information is: does the rate paid match the journeyworker rate for that classification multiplied by the step percentage the programme specifies. Keep the programme's rate schedule where whoever prepares payroll can see it.

Registered programmes specify a ratio of apprentices to journeyworkers. It is worth understanding that this ratio is about how the work is actually staffed, not about how a particular week's payroll happens to look. A week where several journeyworkers were on holiday can produce a payroll that appears out of ratio without anything being wrong on the job. If a ratio question comes up, it is answered by the staffing of the work, and the payroll is evidence rather than the thing being measured.

The form asks for the programme name and the registering body. The regulation, at 29 CFR 5.5(a)(3)(i), separately requires your records to contain each worker's correct classification and the rates paid. Between them, the practical minimum is: for each apprentice, the programme they are registered in, their registration detail, the step they are at, and the percentage that step carries. If that information lives only in somebody's memory or in a folder nobody can find during an audit, the apprentice rate is difficult to defend even when it was entirely correct.