Skilled Trades Association, CAW Local 199 St. Catharines (General Motors Unit) | ||||||
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This letter was sent to Walt Lastewka in response to a hand written letter from him. He received an e-mail from me asking about tool making apprenticeship opportunities for my son. His response was that he didn’t have any leads but that he was initiating a trades committee in the new year. This was my response to him. Hi Walt Thank you for keeping my son Joshua's, resume for toolmaker or general machinist. Joshua was very impressed that you would contact him personally. It is good to see that even though you are attaining higher status in our government you are still grounded in the roots of your community. I see that you are committing to some sort of trades committee in the New Year. Our Skilled Trades Association in General Motors wants to extend our support to your endeavour. If there is anything we can do to help further the cause of our youth and their education and training, please let us know. We (STA) are a small part of our local 199 and we can't speak for everyone but we are sure that everyone would feel the same way if asked. Our local leaders and rank and file are committed to and understands the importance of improving skills at all levels not only in our work force but also in the youth of our country. Training, education and apprenticeships need to be stimulated throughout our province. Every quality job needing higher skill sets requires regimented, approved, consistent training across the country. Similar to education we need standards that are acceptable to all employers. Some fields are doing this on local and even provincial levels. Sadly, training for most fields of expertise is too fragmented and rag tag and we need consistency and unified assistance. General Motors like many other industries has fought to take control of its training programs specifically geared to their needs. They have in the past and even today shown disrespect for the trades and their skill sets. Should industry take responsibility for training their people and then not appreciate the skill sets of the people they have trained? We need work levelling practices in all of industry. The practice of emergency ramp-ups, emergency production overtime, emergency layoffs, just in time fears of downtime, has created an environment where any deviation in the norm constitutes an emergency where manpower is at risk. I went off on a bit of a tangent there but it was to show a fearful industry base that is reluctant to commit to youth and train them for a reasonably extended term of two to four years when they are sceptical of next weeks production or the out break of Sars in their motel or a faltering Canadian or US economy or whatever. All industries are trying to sit on the edge of the economic waters ready to abandon their people as a first line of fiscal defence the moment things seem dangerous. We need government committed to our young even more creatively. We need employers and government ready to take on the responsibility for not only the business of economics but the business of our future (youth). All forms of industry from tourism to heavy industry to high tech must be convinced to train our enthusiastic young. This needs to be done just as in many European countries as a continuation of education and not as something to be done after school on the whims of industry. Our young need to know there is not just flipping hamburgers or scholarships. There is much to be learned in between. Just because a youth doesn’t have the desire or aptitude for long years of scholastic training doesn’t mean that they wouldn’t be excellent skilled people in the thousands of employment opportunities available in any great country. We may be required to help employers more to be able to assist our youth. There are many scenarios that could be discussed to help industry to help our youth. I will not go into them here, suffice to say that each of us has a responsibility to give our young all the tools they need to be more. The answer to a content and prosperous country is found in an educated youth, which in return understands and nurtures the youth of their own futures. With each generation we become more peaceful, considerate, wiser and maybe even some day we may be a world wide human population that cares. Education may not make the world a safer place but, ignorance and a feeling of being left behind most surely will promote a continuing strife between have and have not. Maturity and responsibility is in each of our hands. Once we understand the things that we want and the changes necessary to get them we have only to act. Canada is a great country but she is only as great as her people. We are responsible for each other and the only thing separating us is our attitudes. I repeat my statement to you Walt “If there is anything we can do to help, let us know”. Papa Dez (PD) | ||||||
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