(a) The California Apprenticeship Council shall meet quarterly at a designated date and special meetings may be held at the call of the chair. The council shall issue rules and regulations which establish standards for minimum wages, maximum hours, and working conditions for apprentice agreements in the building and construction trades and for firefighter occupations, hereinafter in this chapter referred to as apprenticeship standards, which in no case shall be lower than those prescribed by this chapter; and shall issue rules and regulations governing equal opportunities in apprenticeship, affirmative action programs which include women and minorities in apprenticeship, and other on-the-job training, and criteria for selection procedures with a view particularly toward eliminating criteria not relevant to qualification for training employment or more stringent than is reasonably necessary.
(b) For purposes of this section, “firefighter occupations” means those occupations submitted by the California Firefighter Joint Apprenticeship Committee and approved by the Chief of the Division of Apprenticeship Standards.
(c) Notwithstanding the standards established pursuant to subdivision (a), if the minimum wages, maximum hours, and working conditions for apprentices in the California Firefighter Joint Apprenticeship Program are in conflict with the provisions of a collective bargaining agreement with a public employer, the provisions of the collective bargaining agreement shall prevail.
(Amended by Stats. 2018, Ch. 704, Sec. 22. (AB 235) Effective September 22, 2018.)