Boots Versus Suits

National Effort to Polish Image of Blue-collar Work

Kerri Birtch
Illustrations by Greg Osmund

Blaine Sheppard’s parents thought their son was making a mistake in pursuing a career as a carpenter. Their boy, they figured, was “too smart” to spend a lifetime as a tradesman in a blue-collar occupation. The Sheppards, of Goose Bay, Labrador, had succumbed, as many parents across Canada do, to the pervasive idea that blue-collar work is not a desirable career choice for their children.

Tell that to the Canadian tradespeople who manufacture transportation equipment: their average weekly earnings in 2000: $929.95, well above the all-industry average of $626.45. Construction-trades workers pocketed almost $100 a week more than the average worker.

Blue-collar work is undergoing a major image make-over as national and provincial governments collaborate with private-sector groups to counter the well-entrenched biases that surround employment in the trades. In addition to better-than-average wages, they can cite hard facts about current and ongoing demand across the nation for tradespeople.

British Columbia needs carpenters and electricians; booming Alberta is begging for all trades, particularly masons, electricians, welders and equipment operators; Ontario can’t get enough carpenters, bricklayers and tile-setters; Atlantic Canada requires bricklayers and electricians; Manitoba and Saskatchewan need masons, electricians, equipment operators and labourers; Quebec is sans carpenters, plumbers, gas fitters, electricians and labourers.

“There is still a prediction of huge labour shortages due to an aging workforce, a decline in the number of skilled trades people immigrating and few youth entering apprenticeship programs,” reports Skills Canada. The agency, a national, not-for-profit one, is dedicated to making trade and technical careers a first-choice career option for young Canadians. Its mandate necessarily means getting the word out to elementary and secondary school students –and their parents–that trades and technical jobs aren’t inferior to the professions or the many white-collar jobs found in the vast world of business and government.

Blaine Sheppard’s parents came around after watching him win the 2000 regional Skills Competition in carpentry, one of many now sponsored around the country by Skills Canada and its partners. Just as in amateur sports, the regional win qualified Blaine for the provincial-level Skills Competition. His parents were on hand to watch proudly as their son won that event, thereby qualifying for the national Skills Competition that year in Quebec. Blaine placed third in the hyper-competitive national event. His accomplishments dispelled any doubts the Sheppards had about their son’s choice of occupation.

Greg Beselaere of the Ontario office of Skills Canada says trades and technical jobs are widely considered to be “boring, dirty and low-paying.” The Canadian Labour and Business Forum has identified the negative image of trades careers as a serious problem. That view was re-inforced by the results of a survey of senior elementary and secondary school children done in late 1999 by Human Resources Development Canada and Conestoga College.