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Canadian Building Trades Push for National Training Standards

The deeply flawed apprenticeship and training bill enacted last year by British Columbia’s Liberal Party leader and Premier Gordon Campbell has set off alarm bells among BC and Canadian construction trade unions. And with good reason, argues BAC Canadian Affairs Director Joe Bognar, Jr., who says “concern about similar legislation making its way across Canada is a real possibility.”

The subject of a May/June 2003 Journal article (“British Columbia Bill Threatens Apprenticeship System”), BC’s new Industry Training Authority Act has fewer requirements and less emphasis on skill. “Trainees” – no longer called apprentices – can take modular or partial trades training. They, along with their employers, determine how much training is appropriate to do an assigned task. Traditional apprenticeship, currently referred to as ‘full scope’ trades training, is now optional.

Concern has not been lost on the Canadian Executive Board of the Building and Construction Trades Department, which established a National Apprenticeship Coordinators’ Committee. Working with their provincial counterparts, Committee members are developing national training standards and appropriate sequencing of training curriculum. The Committee is also working to increase provincial officials’ awareness of the importance of setting national training standards and protecting the integrity of the Red Seal program.

Supporters of BC’s less rigorous approach argued that the new system’s flexibility and reduced restrictions would make it more effective at addressing the province’s skills shortage. Opponents maintain that the de-emphasis on standards and skill will succeed only in supplying a ready source of cheap labor to non-union employers and a de-skilling of the workforce. Since trainees are required to learn only the tasks necessary to complete a job assignment, Bognar foresees “construction sites where individual workers do a little plumbing, a little electrical work, a little carpentry, and some brickwork – a lot of Jack-of-all-trades but not a master journeyman to be found.”

Bognar adds, “Adherence to the highest possible training and craft standards are essential to increasing work opportunities for our members. The Red Seal has helped our members advance their careers and our industry. During the coming months, we’ll be working with BAC Local officers in all the provinces to make sure that members stay informed as the debate on national training standards gathers steam.”