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Every province in Canada and each territory has its own system for training the skilled trades, a situation that has hurt the country’s ability to attract young people to the trades or to keep them in once they start, Unifor’s inaugural Skilled Trades Council heard.
“We have 13 different apprentice systems. If you were setting it up fresh, you wouldn’t set it up this way. You just wouldn’t,” Garry Herman, Chief Executive Officer of the Industry Training Authority in British Columbia, told the Council today.
Herman took part in a panel on challenges facing skilled trades training, as well as giving the afternoon keynote address. Like many at the Council, Herman called for harmonization of apprenticeship programs across Canada.
Currently, any worker with trades papers can work anywhere in Canada. But those still apprenticing cannot move from one province to another to continue their training, though there is some harmonization in the Atlantic.
The Council’s 300 delegates passed a resolution calling on Unifor to support any initiatives that enable apprentices to move around Canada in search of work while pursuing their trades papers.
“We are going to keep pushing for this,” Unifor Skilled Trades Chair David Cassidy said. “We can make a difference for these young apprentices.”
Canadian Labour Congress Researcher Mike Luff said the difficult job market makes harmonization all the more important – since it would allow apprentices to move to get work when need be.
“Apprentices often can’t get their first placement or they do, and then they are laid off,” Luff said during the panel discussion.
Luff stated Canada might want to consider following the example in the United Kingdom, where a new levy on large employers is being brought in to fund placements for apprentices, a suggestion that many at the council supported.
Melissa Young, Regional Coordinator for the Atlantic Apprenticeship Harmonization Project and presenter, encouraged Unifor to push employers to include more apprenticeships when negotiating collective agreements.
Sarah Watts-Rynard, Executive Director at Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, said in her remarks unions can also help by recruiting mentors from among their journeymen members to work with apprentices and guide them through the process.
The Council also passed a resolution today calling on Locals to recruit mentors from among their members, and to bargain contract language to support mentorship programs, including training.
Several speakers and delegates said more effort needs to be made to encourage young people to take up the trades as a viable career option, especially among women and Aboriginal groups.
“And we need to talk to parents, and make sure they know that there are more options than going to university,” said electrician Terry Weymouth, Unifor National Skilled Trades Coordinator.
