North America’s Building Trades Unions is a labor organization representing more than 3 million skilled craft professionals in the United States and Canada. NABTU is composed of fourteen national and international unions and over 330 provincial, state and local building and construction trades councils.

NABTU is dedicated to creating economic security and employment opportunities for its construction workers by growing infrastructure investment and union construction jobs, safeguarding workplace, wage and benefits standards, promoting responsible private capital investments, investing in renowned apprenticeship and training, and creating pathways to the middle class for women, communities of color, military veterans and justice-involved in the construction industry.

In partnership with construction industry employers, NABTU and its affiliates have long sponsored and promoted Registered Apprenticeship training programs as the most effective mechanism for bringing new workers into our industry, training them to understand all aspects of a trade, and providing them with the skills to safely perform complex tasks under ever-changing conditions. The Registered Programs we sponsor jointly with our construction industry partners comprise one of the largest post-secondary education programs in the country. In the U.S. and Canada, we operate over 1,900 apprenticeship programs and annually invest almost 2 billion in training programs that have prepared hundreds of thousands of workers for stable, middle-class careers, producing the safest, most highly trained, and productive, skilled craft workers found anywhere in the world. NABTU also sponsors the largest network of Apprenticeship Readiness training programs (ARPs) in the US construction industry.  Partnering with community-based organizations, workforce development boards, public colleges and CTE high schools, contractors, construction end-users and other stakeholders, our Building Trades Councils have created nearly 250 ARPs nationally that focus on recruiting and training women, people of color, transitioning veterans, and the formerly incarcerated for Building Trades Registered Apprenticeship programs.

NABTU’s purpose is to create more work opportunities, achieve family-sustaining wages and protect labor, training, safety, retirement and benefit standards, not just for the members of our 14 national and international union affiliates, but for all construction workers.