Apprenticeship on public works — DAS 140, DAS 142, and the 1-to-5 ratio

California ties public works to apprenticeship: on a prevailing-wage job you owe the apprenticeship system notice, dispatch requests, ratio compliance, and training-fund contributions — per craft. This is the compliance area contractors lose on paperwork they didn't know was theirs, because none of it is invoiced to you: it's just owed, on a clock, under Labor Code §1777.5.

The two forms, in plain terms

• DAS 140 — Contract Award Information. Your notice to the applicable apprenticeship committee(s) for each craft you'll employ that you've been awarded a public works contract. Send it when the job books — before workers hit the site. If you're a union-signatory shop, your agreement's committee generally covers you, but the notice habit still protects you where crafts overlap.
• DAS 142 — Request for Dispatch of an Apprentice. How you actually request apprentices from the committee — with at least 72 hours' notice before you need them on site. Keep every one you send: a dispatch request the committee couldn't fill is your defense if the ratio comes up short.

The ratio auditors count

The standard requirement is one apprentice hour for every five journeyman hours, per craft, measured over the project — not per day, not per person. What a DIR auditor does is arithmetic on your certified payroll: journeyman hours per craft ÷ apprentice hours per craft. Your timecards are where the hours — and each worker's classification — come from, which is why workers are classified on the roster as what they're actually dispatched as, apprentices included.

Small-crew reality: even a job that only ever fields two journeymen owes the notice and dispatch paperwork; exemptions are narrow and craft-specific — assume the obligation until you've confirmed otherwise for the craft.

Training funds

Prevailing-wage fringes include a training contribution — paid to your CBA's trust or, for non-signatory shops, to the California Apprenticeship Council (CAC-2 form). It's part of the determination's package; skipping it is underpayment, same as any other fringe.

Common mistakes

• "We don't use apprentices" as a plan. Without dispatch requests on file, that's not a position — it's the violation, at penalty rates per day per craft.
• Sending DAS 140 to one committee when two crafts apply. Notices go per craft. A flooring shop whose scope crosses into carpentry owes the carpenters' committee too.
• Dispatch requests by phone. If it isn't written and kept, it didn't happen. The refused or unfilled written request is the exhibit that saves you.

See also

• Certified payroll — weekly cadence and DIR submission
• Enter and approve timecards
• Build your crew roster