Thursday, April 13, 2017

Training! A Small Beginning . . .

By Co Vanderlaan, Retired National Representative

As a retiree, looking back on my 40 years as a CLAC representative—3 in Toronto, 9 in Chatham, Ontario, 28 in Edmonton until my retirement in 2007—often results in reflecting on what began small and turned into huge benefits for members.

In 1995, I was eligible for a two-month sabbatical, which required submitting a project proposal that would lead to benefiting CLAC members. I chose to look for ways to add value to CLAC membership, and after review, the project was approved.

The next two months I spent looking at what vehicles industry used to educate and train their front-line management staff during that time. I soon noticed that employers were laying off long-term employees and were replacing them with younger staff who had basic computer training from their college years.

It soon dawned on me that while employers were training their key management staff, they were investing little or nothing in their workforce to help them upgrade their skills and prepare them for the new technologies. If a worker wanted to upgrade his or her skillset, he or she needed to take time off and enroll in a community college or similar institution, generally, without support from their employer.

It was at this point that I grasped that employers needed to invest in their employees if they wanted to meet the challenges of new technologies while retaining the skillset of their current workforce, both young and old.

My paper proposed the establishment of a CLAC training centre in Edmonton, beginning in 1996, with the financial support of both the union and an investment by employers in their employees. It took some intense negotiations with four relatively large companies signing on for a three-year trial. CLAC members would receive free access to training programs related to safety, skills upgrades, and computer technology.

The first computer course was titled Computers for the Totally Terrified, and was attended by members ages 16 to 70. It was a huge success.

CLAC now has training centres across the country in almost all of its member centres. That little start-up in Edmonton recorded 37,502 course completions in 2015 alone. Which just shows you that working together has huge benefits for both union members and employers.

If you have not yet made use of CLAC’s training programs, contact your local member centre, visit clac.ca/training, or talk to your local representative.

Training! A Small Beginning . . .

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