4. Equity and Efficiency of Production

Equity and efficiency are compatible concepts considering the tens of thousands of people affected by the current adjustment to technology. Short-term objectives which are served by retraining the most skilled workers and displacing the rest will result in consequences we are already starting to see take shape: structural unemployment and social upheaval. This does not add up to long-term "efficiency" of any sort. The Centre for Educational Research and Innovation of the OECD suggests that:

The apparent efficiency of providing training opportunities only for those who have already shown themselves capable of profiting is considerably reduced if one takes into consideration the wider consequences of further depressing the position of the unskilled: one might say that the COSTS of treating the problems thus created absorb the increased wealth thus generated. The opposition of efficiency to equity is frequently misleading--often enough, at any rate, to need careful scrutiny when used as a justification for any policy proposal. 24

Industry's interest in efficiency must be balanced by the state's intervention on behalf of equity through cooperation with industry in retraining for working people.

On the question of productivity, Paid Skills Development Leave may offer a partial solution to the problems of labour turnover and absenteeism. The morale of the worker would greatly benefit from the positive and creative activity of learning which, in turn, would increase in the learner's goodwill toward the industry providing such development.

5. Equality of Opportunity

Our principal objective for Paid Skills Development Leave is to promote equality of opportunity for women fundamentally, this program must provide training necessary to maintain and enhance employment. Paid Skills Development Leave must enable women who have not had the benefit of adequate general education or vocational training to complete their education at the secondary or higher level, and to so improve their skills.25

6. Freedom of Choice in Training and Education

Women need maximum access to self-initiated education and to a free choice of programs made available by industry, educational institutions and community agencies in order to be flexible workers able to move readily from one field to another; to develop fully as human beings; and to preserve our tradition of educated self-determination.

Forecasters' inability to accurately predict training and education needs for future employment has never been more evident than it is now, with confusion and insecurity on every side. Lack of clarity about the type of employment for which they might choose to be retrained is a source of treat concern to women. We therefore refer to the criterion which serves as accurately as any other guide to our development as a people: the fulfillment of the unique talents and abilities of every individual, according to her own choices and enthusiasms. All educational leave programs must augment industrial training and general education with access to courses for personal, social and cultural growth, and such development must be fully funded through the Paid Skills Development Leave program.


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