‘It is freaking people out’: apprenticeship supervision ratio debate heats up

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/04/2024 (526 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Accusations are flying over the provincial government’s move to restore Manitoba’s apprenticeship supervision ratio to one-to-one from its current two apprentice to one journeyman.

The regulations had been one-to-one since 1999, but were changed at the end of 2021 by the Progressive Conservative government in an effort to beef up the skilled labour pool.

The NDP announced last month it will follow through on its 2023 election campaign promise to reverse that decision, with regulations coming into effect later this year.

The Winnipeg Construction Association has said the change to 1-to-1 will be disruptive and could mean apprentices will soon be laid off.

Tanya Palson, executive director of Manitoba Building Trades, called that stance fear mongering.

She said her organization has already fielded calls from people saying they have been told they might be laid off as early as next week.

“It is freaking people out,” she said Friday. “Apprentices are already the last ones on the job and the first ones to get laid off whenever there is any slowdown.

“It’s not fair as a young apprentice to be told they have to be laid off because this is what the government is doing. It is bordering on intimidation and unfair labour practice.”

Ron Hambley, president of the Winnipeg Construction Association, said it’s not fear mongering, it’s fact.

“If you change the law and I can only have one apprentice per journeyperson and I have two (apprentices), then someone has to go,” he said.

Hambley said that scenario will be especially tricky in rural areas, where there just isn’t as many journeypersons available.

Minister of Economic Development, Investment, Trade and Natural Resources Jamie Moses said the changes were announced as part of his government’s focus on building a high-quality and safe training regimen.

“What we know is that under the previous government one of the bottlenecks for training was a lack of seats,” he said. (Apprentices need a certain number of hours of on-the-job-training and a certain amount of classroom time.)

“What we have done is taken steps to address that in the budget by adding an additional $1.5 million for additional apprenticeship training seats.”

Richard Perchotte, Tory MLA for Selkirk and critic for advanced education and training, said the former system was working just fine. Meanwhile, the skilled labour force in Manitoba is facing a dramatic shortage of qualified apprentices and journeymen.

“This is bigger than a concern,” he said. “It is crisis in the making.”

The NDP government said the changes in the apprenticeship supervision regulations were made in a desire to create safer workplaces. It followed stakeholder discussions, including with the mother of 19-year-old Michael Skanderberg, who was electrocuted while replacing a school lighting system in 1999 without supervision.

On Friday, Premier Wab Kinew scoffed at the suggestion new apprenticeship regulations would cause layoffs.

“Not a chance,” he said. “There’s going to be so much work. There’s going to be so many apprentices, so many tradespeople. The economy is going to really grow under the plan that we laid out in our budget this week.”

Palson, who was recently named chairperson of the Manitoba Apprenticeship and Certification Board, said that board has not met yet, but the changes in question will be definitely be discussed.

She said every effort will be made to grandfather each apprentice currently in the system, so no one will have to be laid off because of the regulation change. “I am fairly confident the board will do what they can to make sure those contracts are not cancelled.”

— with files from Chris Kitching

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca