By Robert Clarke
Fitzroy Nesbitt has found a creative way to avoid Canada’s mandatory construction apprenticeships – working for himself.
The Jamaica-born mason, who came to Ottawa 24 years ago, is just one of 1,200 registered immigrant tradesmen in the city. He says a four-year apprenticeship in bricklaying wouldn’t be worth his time.
About half the trades in the Canadian construction industry offer apprenticeships. Most construction firms ask for certificates of qualification to be sure that their employees, including foreign-trained immigrants, are up to speed on Canadian standards, materials and safety practices.
But when you work for yourself and don’t join a union, apprenticeships mean nothing.
“Ninety per cent of the guys coming through the apprenticeship, I figure I know more than them,” says Nesbitt, waving his thick, cement-caked hands to emphasize the point.
Nesbitt’s philosophy is simple: a small-island immigrant with no established industry connections can never get ahead by playing the same game as the construction-industry heavyweights.
So he’s developed his own highly-confidential system of laying bricks – a system he’s taught to three Jamaicans who work part-time with him building homes at a Stittsville residential project.
“As long as I do it the way the large contractors do,” says Nesbitt, “in terms of volume, in terms of finance, they will flush me out.”
He says his competitors have gone so far as to poach his labourers for an extra $2 an hour in their attempts to put him under.
Nesbitt trumpets the benefits of working for himself. Self-actualization, he calls it.
“No matter what the condition, never let nobody determine your future,” he says.
“Better you die poor than die rich and never determine your future.”
But unlike Nesbitt, most tradespersons have to rely on large, registered contractors for their weekly wages.
And if formally employed as electricians, carpenters or welders, they must be certified by the province and their regulatory body.
The Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities is also developing an apprenticeship program for labourers – the relatively unskilled muscle of the contracting industry.
The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, an organization devoted to encouraging the role of apprenticeships in creating a skilled labour force, says a tradesperson’s experience is more difficult to quantify than that of a professional.
“Has somebody been working in a trade area? Sure. They may have been working in a trade area for 10 years,” says Keith Lancastle, who heads the forum.
“Might they be competent? Potentially. The challenge is it’s not as easy to measure their formal qualification.”
Lancastle says new immigrants with bachelor’s degrees are still looked on more favourably than tradespersons, but he believes that bias is starting to shift.
Richard Hayter of the Unionized Building and Construction Trades Council, remembers the role immigrants played in creating Ottawa’s physical landscape. The city’s canals were built by the Irish. Many old stone houses were built by the Scots.
Hayter says the union still hears of construction companies importing specialized workers for specific projects: plaster workers from Italy, metal workers from East Asia, and masons from Latin America.
“There are pockets of knowledge and technology around the world that North America has always been quick to welcome,” he says.
But in 1995, the Canadian Labour and Business Centre identified two obstacles to entering the trades: assessment of academic credentials and skills certification.
Nine years later, Ottawa’s building and personnel experts cite the same barriers.
Nesbitt, the mason who believes in creating jobs for other “Third World” immigrants, notes that his alternative to an apprenticeship hasn’t been easy. “Self-employment is hard,” he says.
“But you have to do it, or your people will end up flipping burgers and working at Tim Horton’s.”