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FUTURE OF LABOUR
The British Columbia Maritime Employers Association (BCMEA) is a multi-employer waterfront organization, representing 62 ship owners, agents, stevedores, and ocean going terminal operators in the Asia Pacifi c Gate-way. The BCMEA advocates on behalf of its Customer-Members for legislative and regulatory reform on issues aff ecting labour reliability. The Association is a service provider of labour relations, training, recruitment & dispatch of longshore employees.
BRITISH COLUMBIA MARITIME EMPLOYERS ASSOCIATION
www.bcmea.com
An inDepenDent section by meDiAplAnet to the province
the apprenticebig dividends await those hiring
returning to rootsolivia chow’s own union connection
safer than everDebunking workplace myths
December 2011
FUTURE OF LABOUR
See how Jeff Derkson and Caitlin Mayo turned their interests into successful professions
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Caitlin Mayo, 22, local bakery owner,
competes at the SkillsBC competition
See how See how Jeff Derkson and Caitlin Mayo turned their
competes at the SkillsBC competition
WHere WiLL Your Career take You?
2 · December 2011 An inDepenDent section by meDiAplAnet to the province
CHALLENGES
Considering your path
Think of a world without trades and technol-ogy, within that you can think of a world without applied sciences
and many parts of the service sector. Without any of them we wouldn’t
have much of a labour market at all. Without those industries you can take away this paper you are read-ing right now; you can take away the building you are in, or the bus you ride to work or school on or the per-son who is driving it.
Despite the vital role that these industries play in today’s world, and the future, there’s a misconception about the career options that the
trades and technology industries offer. Parents and, most impor-tantly, youth coming out of second-ary school should not be quick to judge the future of labour in British Columbia without factoring in the role of these industries. If you are the parent of someone looking to get a degree, why not encourage them to do that while getting some practi-cal skills under their belt? There are various post-secondary schools in
British Columbia with programs that accept trades training as a transferable credit into Bachelor Degree programs.
These industries are also reach-ing new heights in terms of safety standards. Thanks in large part to the role the unionized labour move-ment has played in improving safety standards, workplace accidents have been steadily declining for years. Unions within trades and technol-ogy have helped increase the focus on providing effective orientation and training. Now more than ever trades training is specific to the job, the tasks, and the worksite and is also ongoing.
The trades and technology indus-tries offer a comfortable living. For
instance, the average person working in the trades in Brit-ish Columbia is making close to $50,000 per year; in applied sciences, it’s more than $65,000. And, for those employees in a union they typically make $10,000 more per year than non-union employees. For those that enter management in the trades and tech industries in BC they will average more than $65,000 per year. Of course, apprentice-ships start out at a lower rate but even still, over a four year apprenticeship, the apprentice will make roughly $150,000. Not a bad starting point for some-one if they choose to do it while earning a degree.
future of labour 1st edition, december 2011
Publisher: Jon [email protected] Designer: Penelope [email protected]: martin addison, Ken Georgetti, andrew seale, bob spence, adam thorvaldson, Greg Verdula
Managing Director: Joshua [email protected] Developer: mark [email protected]
Distributed within: the Province, december 2011this section was created by mediaplanet and did not involve the Province or its editorial departments.
mediaplanet’s business is to create new customers for our advertisers by providing readers with high quality editorial content that motivates them to act.
follow us on facebooK & twitter! facebook.com/MediaplanetCAtwitter.com/MediaplanetCA
1fACt
Adam thorvaldsonexecutive director, skills canada b.c.
from trades to training to the role of unionized labour; learn how to navigate the endless possibilities in BC’s labour market.
there Are 38,000 British ColuMBiAns in APPrentiCe-
shiPs
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1 2ClIenT ProoF # InTernAl reVIeW #CreATIon DATe: 12/15/11 moDIFICATIon DATe: december 16, 2011 11:38 AM oUTPUT DATe: 12/16/11Pub: Vancouver Province
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We’re matching skills to jobs by bringing together schools, industry, labour and small business in BC communities. And that helps keep families close to home. To learn more about the BC Jobs Plan, or to share your ideas, visit BCJobsPlan.ca
Version b
Engagecommunities.
Build careers,
right hereat home.
Train locally.
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SKILLED TRADESPERSONS ARE IN DEMAND
Need Skills?Explore careers in resource trades?
www.tradesrock.com www.apprenticebc.ca
Earn While You Learn, Great Wages, Varied Work, Red Seal Trades Connecting Out of Work Apprentices with Employers
Need Skills?Looking to hire skilled apprentices?
Advertise with us!Interested in participating in an upcoming section? Please contact Joshua Nagel, Managing Director of Mediaplanet Vancouver.Phone: 604 716 2554Email: [email protected]
4 · December 2011 An inDepenDent section by meDiAplAnet to the province
INSPIRATIONQuestion: How did her early experience with unions shape MP Olivia Chow’s aspirations?Answer: Her appreciation stems from how her own family has been protected and supported.
A unifying promiseolivia Chow knows what the impact on her family was when her mother became a member of a union at a toronto hotel.
“She was able to raise me on the money she earned, which the union had negotiated,” says Chow, a promi-nent New Democrat MP and the widow of the late NDP leader, Jack Layton. “My mother worked until she was in her late 60s, though the job she
was doing in the laundry department was very labour intensive … I’m glad there was a union there to protect her.”
early experienceChow was a teenager when her family moved from Hong Kong to Canada in 1970. Her father (a school superinten-dent and former high school biology teacher) and mother (a teacher) could not find employment in the profes-sions they were trained in.
Her mother, Ho Sze, finally found
work in a garment factory doing piece work, but earned very little money until she was able to get a job at a hotel where the workers were members of the Hotel & Restaurant Employees & Bartenders International Union (HRE). She started as a hotel maid, then moved into the laundry department.
At the age of about 20, Chow joined her mother on a picket line during a strike against that Toronto hotel.
Chow, who has worked at one level or another in public life for three decades, stresses that unions “are the
reason that Canadians have a 40-hour work week, vacation pay, equal pay for work of equal value and much more.”
“Unions represent unity, a coming together,” she adds. “Today, unions need to engage young people to help them understand that concept, that people are not alone … that they can push together for a better standard of life.”
“Unions represent unity, a coming together.”olivia Chow, MP, new Democrat Party of Canada
leader to leader
BoB Spence
Celebrating OVER 80 Years of Building B.C.
www.iuoe115.com
Local 115 of the International Union of Operating Engineers represents over
10,000 skilled workers in construction, road building, transportation and
aviation throughout British Columbia and the Yukon. Join us, and rise above.
A union of professionals making a difference in BC
A union representing lawyers, health care professionals, teachers, foresters, engineers, professional university
staff, librarians, and many other workers who are committed to making a difference in BC.
Visit us at pea.org to find out how to become a unionized professional
ProfessionalEmployeesAssociation
Visit us at pea.org
By inCreAsing sAlAry, unions
helP Boost DoMestiC DeMAnD
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Photo: Federal ndP
December 2011 · 5An inDepenDent section by meDiAplAnet to the province
INSIGHT
insiGht
I am the president of the Cana-dian Labour Congress but I started my working life in the Cominco lead and zinc smelter in Trail, B.C. My father and uncles had all worked there as well. We all
knew just what a diff erence the union made for workers in Trail and throughout our province, which has a rich labour tradition.
Being in a union means earning a decent wage so that people can buy a home, a car, raise a family, take a vacation, put their kids through college, and—after a lifetime of
work—be able to retire in dignity. These decent salaries and pensions are also good for small businesses and they build a better future for our children. A good standard of liv-ing creates strong, vibrant and safe communities. In fact, unions have been the backbone of the middle class in Canada—but both are under attack.
Crunching the numbersSince 1976, median earnings in Canada have barely inched up from $44,100 to $45,600, adjusted for infl ation. That’s an increase in
income of just $1,500 in a third of a century—less than $45 a year in real terms. There is a direct relationship between this shrinking of the mid-dle class and the decline in union membership as a proportion of the Canadian private sector workforce.
About one in three private sector workers were union members in the late 1980s, but today that number is under one in fi ve. We see the results in the glaring income disparity that is now shining the spotlight on the massive advantages gained by the richest one percent of people in our country over the last 30 years.
Unions have traditionally con-tributed to a healthy middle class in a number of ways. They limited to some degree the share of total national income which goes to cor-porate profi ts. Unions have also been able to narrow the pay gap between senior managers and profession-als and the rest of the workforce. Unions are successful in reducing systemic wage gaps in workplaces. The more equal wage structure in unionized workplaces also sets wage and benefi t standards that spill over into non-union work-places. Those non-union workers
tend to be better paid when they live in communities with a critical mass of unionized workers earning decent wages
Unions also advocate for gov-ernment policies that benefit all working people, not just their own members. Lifting up the standard of living for a broadly-based group of Canadians is good for everyone. Unions play a key role in achieving that end. We should be proud and we should celebrate what unions do for workers and for our communities.
Unions: Benefi ting us all
PULP, PAPER AND WOODWORKERS OF CANADAwww.ppwc.ca
Between 2000 and 2009, 71 wood product manufacturing plants closed, including 45 lumber mills and 16 producers of value added wood products.
During the first 6 months of 2011, more than 40% of trees logged on the BC coast were exported as raw logs.
When we export raw logs, we export jobs.
When will the BC Government start to care?
ken georgettiPresident, canadian labour congress
unions have traditionally contributed to a healthy middle class and have narrowed the gap between upper management and the labour force.
6 · December 2011 An inDepenDent section by meDiAplAnet to the province
NEwS
The benefits of trades trainingtoday, many university stu-dents graduate with a debt load and—in some fields—have to compete with a large number of other university grads for a limited number of jobs.
Across town, their siblings may be graduating from a three- or four-year apprenticeship program without any debt, money in their pockets and a full-time skilled trade position waiting for them at an employer who knows them very well.Kevin Evans, the CEO of the Indus-try Training Authority (ITA), a B.C. Crown Corporation, quickly rattles off the top three skilled trades where major shortages of trained workers are projected by 2020:
■■ Carpenters and cabinet makers■■ Chefs and cooks■■ Automobile service technicians.
An anticipated shortageThere are approximately 38,000 people currently training in B.C. in a registered apprentice program; pre-apprentice program or a high school student pre-apprentice program, said Evans, but a significant shortage of skilled trades workers is expected to start being felt in 2015 and 2016.
To help meet the need, the B.C. Government is creating Regional Workforce Tables which will have a mandate to increase coordination between industry, post-secondary institutions, and other key stake-holders to align skills development. Premier Christy Clark says that aside from the new initiative employers need to be proactive as well .“Employ-ers and workers also have a key role to play—both can utilize labour market information and forecasts to under-stand where the jobs will be and what skills will be required.”
The ITA is working with various companies to get more employ-ers involved in the apprenticeship programs. In a typical program, the apprentices spend 80 percent of their time being trained on the job and 20 percent in school. They are paid for
the time at work (and some employ-ers also voluntarily pay for the time devoted to school).
The B.C. Government is also encouraging companies to bring on apprentices through additional poli-cies aimed at making the investment in labour more attractive. “We’re doing this now by extending the BC Training Tax Credit and continuing to invest in the Industry Training Authority,” according to Premier Clark.
The skills that the apprentices are
and will be learning are not limited to narrow parameters. “They will be flexible skilled tradesmen who can be switched from, say, a hydro elec-tric project to the new Canadian Navy ships that have just been announced by the federal government,” said Evans.
Employers needing skilled trades people in the future can’t assume it will be easy to simply pick up professionals from simi-lar companies, said Evans. They will need to be directly involved in expanded apprenticeship pro-grams “to ensure they are going to get the skilled tradesmen they need.”
BoB Spence
Kevin evansceo, industry traning authority
Christy ClarkPremier, british columbia
December 2011 · 7An inDepenDent section by meDiAplAnet to the province
Begin your career at Vancouver Community College, recipient of the 2011 Consumer Choice Award for best trade school in Vancouver. Train with the best and get the job-ready skills employers demand in:
• Transportation trades• Culinary arts• Baking and pastry arts• Hair design and esthetics
Register today or check out our info sessions.
For more info, visit vcc.ca or call 604.443.8453.
Discover trades opportunities at VCC
CO_COMA_Province_10x3_Dec15_2011Province 10.13”w x 3.77”h
INSIGHT
What is the biggest myth when it comes to safety
culture in the workplace?It is a myth to think that the work-place is safe simply because an orga-nization has the requisite number of trained people. A culture of safety consciousness must exist from the shop floor through management to the Board of Directors. Safe prac-tices and prevention at all times are the keys.
in your opinion, what is the most innovative or
interesting safety practice adopted in B.C. in the past five years?A periodic safety audit is a great innovation. This should be highly realistic and should test more than just facilities, equipment and skills of the first aid attendants for example. It should test the psycho-logical aptitude of the attendants (it isn’t helpful if the attendants are immobilized at the sight of a severe injury), it should test the leadership and responsiveness of co-workers and management, and it should test the organization’s ability to not only
learn from the safety audit but to actually embed the learnings in the culture. Too few organizations con-duct effective safety audits.
What are some things to look for regarding safety
practices and culture if you are considering a career in any industry?The obvious place to start is the organization’s formal safety record relative to other organizations in the same industry. Also look for signs that indicate the number of accident free days for the work site. The next and most important thing to do is to speak to managers AND union representatives in the organization. How often is safety, specifically prevention, discussed at management meetings, union meetings and staff team meetings? The only way to establish whether an organization “walks the safety talk” is to ask employees.
Question and answer
Martin addiSon
cio
st. John Ambulance
Debunking safety myths
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As a new generation of youth in B.C. muse about their place in the workforce, trades and skill-related labour are opening doors and providing new opportunities.
Take baking and cooking for exam-ple—the age old skill provides one of the basic building blocks for life, but without skilled members of society willing to devote their time to taking the food from the fields to your plates, the other links in the chains of a pro-ductive society can’t function.
gold-standard talentYoung people like Jeff Derkson and Caitlin Mayo—both Skills Canada competition finalists—have chosen to pursue their love of food and turn
it into a life long career.“A lot of people sell their soul to
music and other things but I sold my soul to cooking,” says Derkson, 21. “I make people feel good by creating something that came out of the earth and sea.”
In addition to winning several skills competitions, Derkson has also acted as a judge on the panel at the age of 20.
He says the seeds to mastering a trade are planted in family life but it’s a combination of training and expe-rience that help you excel at your trade.
“The industry taught me how to become a chef but my family taught me how to cook,” says Derkson.
He decided to pursue Culinary Arts at Templeton Secondary School to advance his skills.
Mayo says she followed a similar path pursuing the ACE-IT program—an industry training and apprentice-ship program.
“When I was in high school I had the opportunity to do the ACE-IT program,” says Mayo. “So I left high school and I went and did my pro-gram and it snowballed from there.”
Since then she’s opened her own business at 22—Sugar Patisserie—in Surrey. “You have to put in the hours and realize that when you’re first learning you’re not going to make the money,” says Mayo. “Sometimes its more important to take a job where you don’t make the money but you’re actually learning… you’ll come out of it a lot more ahead.”
andrew Seale
career sPotliGht: the lonGshoreman
Playing an essential role in an indus-try worth hundreds of millions of dollars to our economy, the Long-shoreman is a profession that allows you to live a life where you can own your own home and comfortably raise a family.
■■ The Longshoreman plays an inte-
gral role in helping British Colum-bia’s economy; facilitating the move-ment of both import and export com-modities.
■■ Flexible working hours and an average salary ranging from $100,000 to $150,000 for more experienced and trained
employees. ■■ Less prone to recessionary
impacts: still a demand for workers during tough economic times.
Cooking up a future
GreG Verdula
bcmeA
BC is foreCAsteD to exPerienCe A signifiCAnt
sKills shortAge By 2015
