Grimshaw said the smaller apprenticeship ratios work for the small companies who are usually working on small projects, but companies need more journeymen for apprentices when they start working on larger projects, like industrial applications.

“These projects are so big physically that if you had 1:1 journeyman and apprentices, then all of a sudden you’re going to end up with a bunch of apprentices who are potentially a bunch of apprentices in one area and no journeymen around,” said Grimshaw, adding that it’s a proven fact that young people take more risks than people who have been in the trade for a long time.

“Young people think they’re invincible, so there’s a big concern there. At least if you’ve got three journeymen in an area, one of them is near that apprentice to make [sure he’s safe] and learning his trade properly.”

Grimshaw said the IBEW’s apprenticeship completion rate is about 95 per cent while the OEL’s is about 50 per cent. He said they build journeymen, not apprentices.

“They bring in apprentices, they start them, they teach them just enough to be dangerous and then they lay them off because they’re too expensive — they’re looking for cheap labour, they’re not looking for skilled tradespeople.” The OEL’s campaign maintains that Ontario’s Dalton McGuinty Liberal government is creating an “artificial shortage” in skilled trades.

The argument has been made that other areas of the country have smaller ratios or none at all.

But Grimshaw said these areas don’t have the same safety record as Ontario. He said this whole campaign against the current ratio is about short-term fixes.

“We need to say ‘how are we going to sustain our numbers? How are we going to make sure that we have properly trained people? How are we going to make sure that they keep up with all of the latest technologies,” he stated.

“We go out and we hire professional people to do research for us — we get economists, we get people that are in the industry, we get a whole raft of people to get together and say let’s analyze this and let’s see where we go.”

He said that if the current ratios aren’t working, it should be examined by a committee focused on the interests of unions, non-unions and colleges to ensure the trade maintains its integrity and safety record.

“That’s what the College of Trades has been developed for — to sit down and examine things. If the 3:1 ratio doesn’t work for electrical, fine, then professional people should sit down, crunch the numbers and look at it and say ‘ok as an industry what do we need?’”

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