Over the last year, we have advised, through our many programs and articles, that DBE and M/WBE goals and monitoring are the “hot” issues in public contracting and continue to be a priority high on the agendas of government agencies at all levels. We now have observed the emergence of another area of focus by government agencies – whether public contractors have approved apprenticeship programs for each trade classification of work to be utilized on public improvement projects. At first glance, this may seem to only affect non-union contractors, but as we will discuss, it can be a significant problem for union contractors as well.