DAS 140 and DAS 142, explained

California's apprenticeship paperwork travels with certified payroll on nearly every public works job, and it has its own deadlines and its own penalties. Here is the machinery, plainly. One honest note up front: WellStanding files certified payroll, not DAS forms, and this guide exists because our customers keep asking how the two fit together.

The obligation underneath the forms

On most California public works projects, contractors in apprenticeable crafts must employ registered apprentices at a ratio the law sets, with the details in Labor Code section 1777.5 and its regulations. The Division of Apprenticeship Standards (DAS) administers it, and the two forms are how you interact with that system:

• DAS 140, Public Works Contract Award Information. Your notice to the applicable apprenticeship committees that you have a covered contract. It tells the committees who you are, what the job is, and your approximate dates and workforce. Committees for each craft in the project area are entitled to it near the start of your work.
• DAS 142, Request for Dispatch of an Apprentice. Your actual request that a program send you apprentices. Dispatch requests carry advance-notice requirements ahead of the date you need the apprentice on site, and requesting properly, in writing, on time, is what protects you when a program cannot supply anyone.

Forms and instructions live on DIR's apprenticeship pages at dir.ca.gov/das. Awarding bodies and compliance portals increasingly ask for copies of both alongside certified payroll.

The ratio, and how it is actually satisfied

The working rule of thumb across apprenticeable crafts is one hour of registered apprentice work for every five journeyman hours on the project, measured over the life of your work there, with craft-specific variations controlled by the statute and the program standards. Satisfying it takes three things working together: employing registered apprentices (or properly requesting dispatch and documenting the response), paying them the apprentice rates from the applicable determination for their period of training, and making the training fund contributions the determination lists, either to the program or to the California Apprenticeship Council. Your certified payroll is where all three become visible: apprentice classifications, apprentice rates, and training contributions all appear on the eCPR and the WH-347, which is why apprenticeship problems are so often discovered during payroll review.

What skipping it costs

Noncompliance with section 1777.5 carries civil penalties assessed per calendar day of noncompliance, with higher exposure for repeat violations. The per-day penalty mechanics live in Labor Code section 1777.7, and for a serious violation of section 1777.5 the Labor Commissioner can also deny a contractor the right to bid on or perform public works for up to one year for a first violation and up to three years for a second or subsequent violation, under Labor Code section 1777.1. Two practical points matter more than the numbers. First, the paperwork is the defense: a contractor who sent the DAS 140, requested dispatch on the DAS 142 with proper notice, and kept the committee's response has a compliance story even when no apprentice ever arrived. Second, enforcement usually starts from your certified payroll, because missing apprentice hours are visible right there in the classification column.

How this fits with your certified payroll

• Apprentices appear on certified payroll with their apprentice classification and period, at the apprentice rate the determination sets, not a discounted journeyman line.
• Training fund contributions appear in the fringe fields, and whether they flow to the program or the Council changes nothing about their visibility on the filing.
• The ratio math runs on the hours your filings report. Clean, consistent filings make your apprenticeship position provable; late or sloppy ones make even a compliant contractor look exposed.

Where we stand on DAS filings

We do certified payroll first and we do it right, so WellStanding does not file DAS 140s or 142s today; they are on the roadmap, and our customers handle them directly with the committee lists and forms at dir.ca.gov/das. What we do handle is the half of apprenticeship compliance that lives inside the payroll record: apprentice classifications, rates, and training contributions rendered correctly on every WH-347 and eCPR, so the filings that trigger apprenticeship scrutiny are the same filings that answer it. First weekly filing free, pricing on the home page.