Unions and employers are worried about seeing more and more unskilled workers on construction sites in Quebec. One week before the economic update from the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, the FTQ-Construction hopes that the government will correct the situation.
“When you hire an employee who has done 900 hours of lessons, it’s not the same as if you take someone who sharpened skates the week before at Canadian Tire,” said Franco Santoriello, co-owner in an interview. by Santco.
This contractor in formwork of concrete structures and superstructures, who employs 550 people, immediately admits speaking “from both sides of the mouth”. Because the procedure of the Commission de la construction du Québec (CCQ) which allows the hiring of a greater number of workers without training or diploma – a process called “entry by opening the basins” – aims to help it in these times of labor shortage.
“Yes, it allows people to enter the industry, but they are not qualified. It’s as if we were short of cardiologists and we decided to hire nurses to replace them, ”he explains.
“When you arrive by basin and you start from nothing, it is in your interest to be working, because the competence is not there”, recognizes Pierre-Louis Laliberté, who worked on construction sites without training for a year. before starting his vocational studies diploma (DEP), last October, at the School of Trades and Occupations of the Construction Industry in Quebec.
PHOTO PATRICE LAROCHE, THE SUN
Pierre-Louis Laliberté
“When I started working in a company that made formwork, where I had to make molds in which will be received cubic meters of concrete, I came home and I felt really pocket, he says. However, today I see that it is one of the basic things that we learn in training. ”
In addition to the loss of productivity and the risk of accidents, Mr. Santoriello is worried that “the repeated opening of the basins” will “reduce the quality of the work”. “In Quebec, we are lucky to have a quality of employees that is appreciated in the other provinces. Qualified employees add value to your business, ”he argues.
Entered by basin, they return to studies
Mr. Laliberté left the event industry in 2020, a sector affected by the pandemic, to indulge his new passion. He calculated that his DEP in carpentry would allow him to see all the fields of competence of the trade in less time than if he learned “on the job by the basins”. In addition, the government offered benefits for requalification in a required trade, an incentive for this future father.
Yannick Dion-Laberge also chose to register for the DEP in carpentry-joinery after entering through the basins on a construction site, where he had the impression of slowing down the journeyman who was supposed to train him. “It’s quicker to get in through the pools, but if you don’t know anything, it’s hard. There is a companion with you for three years, but if you don’t ask a lot of questions, you don’t know where you are going, ”he explains, stressing that he appreciates discussions with his teachers, which give him a global perspective of the profession and the labor market.
“Dangerous for him, but also for the public”
Since April, eight measures introduced by the government have increased the availability of labor on construction sites in Quebec, including one allowing a journeyman to supervise two apprentices rather than one. This measure, combined with entry without training on construction sites, creates a dangerous imbalance, believes the FTQ-Construction.
“We do not want the viaducts to fall because the supervision of apprentices is not done correctly on the sites”, maintains in an interview Éric Boisjoly, general manager of the FTQ-Construction.
“All government projects are our taxes, so the public will pay them,” he continues. Taxpayers want our bridges, our viaducts, our hospitals to be built to standards. When someone comes home without training, it is dangerous for him, but also for the public. It is also a question of health and safety. ”
One week before the economic update from the Minister of Finance, Eric Girard, the FTQ-Construction hopes that the government will really look into the training of construction trades in order to ensure the maintenance of competence in the industry. .
In 2020, 2,500 carpenters – the most common profession – entered the labor market without a diploma or training, while 1,400 arrived with their DEP, indicates to Press the CCQ.
Fewer than 10 electricians and plumbers (pipefitters) returned to the basins in 2020 while more than 1,000 did so with their DEP in their pocket. The CCQ maintains that it values obtaining a diploma above all.
Tools in the trunk
The FTQ-Construction has several tools in its safe to offer to the Minister. For example, workers entering by pool are required to take a small 30-hour training course to maintain their skills card.
“Instead of this 30-hour training course, it is proposed that those who enter by basin have the obligation to follow all the DEP modules in any profession. So young people would be less inclined to drop out of school, because they would have the obligation during the four years of learning to return to the school benches to do their DEP module during the downtime of construction, two or three months a year, ”explains Éric Boisjoly.
The Association de la construction du Québec (ACQ), which represents 17,719 companies, notes the lack of training in certain regions of Quebec. The ACQ has offered the Ministry of Education training every four years in regions where the population density is lower.
The business community is even ready to make its contribution, says the association. “There are entrepreneurs who have told me: ‘If I have to put money out of my pocket to train people in my sector at the vocational training center, I am ready to do it” “, relates on the phone Guillaume Houle, spokesperson for the ACQ.
“The opening of the basins is a temporary solution for us, it should not be the norm as it is currently”, he concludes.