Province restores one-to-one ratio for apprentices

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This article was published 27/03/2024 (598 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba’s plan to restore the one-to-one ratio of skilled-trades apprentices to journeyperson supervisors won’t improve safety and will make the shortage of skilled labour even worse, critics say.

“It’s extremely disappointing to see Manitoba move backwards on this,” said Winnipeg Construction Association president Ron Hambley.

In 2021, the former Progressive Conservative government increased the ratio of apprentices supervised by Red Seal-certified journeypersons from one-to-one to two-to-one, saying it would increase apprenticeship registration and get more Manitobans into the skilled trades.

On Wednesday, the NDP government announced it is going back to the one-on-one ratio to increase safety and improve training.

“This approach is going to help Manitobans not only feel comfortable going into the skilled trades but know that they’re going to go home after a day in the skilled trades,” Economic Development, Investment and Trade Minister Jamie Moses told the Free Press Wednesday. “Journeypeople can provide more attention when they have the one-to-one approach.”

Moses said the decision to reduce the ratio follows discussions with Manitobans, including the mother of 19-year-old Michael Skanderberg, who was electrocuted while replacing a school lighting system in 1999 without supervision.

Cindy Skanderberg lobbied for stronger safety rules that resulted in 2006 legislation to disallow helpers from performing such tasks and imposed a one-to-one apprenticeship ratio. When the PCs announced legislation in 2021 to increase the ratio, Skanderberg was back at the legislature to oppose the move.

“I will fight to my dying breath for my son and his legacy,” she told the Free Press at the time. She could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

Hambley said there’s no indication that increasing the ratio impacted safety and that injuries among construction workers have steadily declined over the past five years. Reverting to a one-to-one ratio may cost current apprentices jobs and make it more difficult for them to graduate, he said in a WCA news release Wednesday.

“Anyone can tell you that we’re currently in the middle of a skilled labour shortage that’s going to get worse before it gets better,” he said.

An estimated 19 per cent of Manitoba’s construction workforce is expected to retire by 2032, according to Manitoba Building Trades.

“This certainly won’t help the industry train more skilled workers,” Hambley said.

Neither did the two-to-one ratio, said Tanya Palson, executive director of Manitoba Building Trades.

“We’ve seen no evidence that the two-to-one ratio is actually increasing the number of people completing the apprenticeship system,” she said Wednesday.

There aren’t enough provincially funded training seats for apprentices at Manitoba colleges and the completion rate is less than 50 per cent across all trades for those who get in, she said.

“It’s designed to be a four-year training program and we’re seeing it being used by the contractor community as a labour pool and that’s not the purpose of it,” she said. “Adding more people to the workforce without having a plan to get them (their Red Seal certification) sets them up for failure and to potentially lose their interest in the industry. It’s not solving the problem.”

The Tories took issue with the government’s decision.

“The NDP rollback will hit the Manitoba economy with job losses and a shortage of skilled workers, which mean less homes built at a more expensive price,” a statement from the PC caucus said Wednesday.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca