Use of Trainees as Cheap Labor

    The national Save Our Summer Coalition has advocated strongly against the misuse of tax dollars for private gain. Federal funding under SEED, to non-profit and public agencies was cut back from 100 to 65 per cent between 1984 and 1986, in favor of direct subsidies to private employers. Yet CEIC's own evaluation of the program showed: that 32 per cent of the businesses receiving SEED dollars would have filled the same jobs without assistance; that the private sector created significantly fewer permanent jobs than the not-for-profit sector: that two-thirds of the jobs created in the non-private sector were administrative or professional compared to one-quarter in the private sector; and that only one-third of those hired by the for-profit sector were women compared to two-thirds by the not-for-profit sector.

    The SOS Coalition believes that most private-sector employers used SEED to get government-subsidized student labor. "The motivation of the private company is to make a profit, and if job-training subsidies will help, of course they'll use them," SOS spokesperson Roger Hollander told the Toronto Star in July, motivation is to provide training and service to the community." Canadian Labor Congress spokesperson, Ron Lang, agrees: "It gives a private business a subsidized worker for a period of time. There's nothing at all to prevent him laying off that worker once the subsidization is over."(11)

Duplication of Existing Training Programs

    The Association of Canadian Community Colleges believes that "the private sector has not demonstrated the ability to conduct qualified training, to provide assessment of the training, or to offer appropriate and useful certification; programs offered by the private sector are often watered down compromises or duplicates of those offered at the college." (12) Many bear a striking resemblance to existing long-standing college programs, for example, these Job Entry and Re-Entry programs approved in B.C. and Ontario:

    Decision-making at the regional and local levels of CEIC appears uncoordinated. Many projects seem to duplicate each other as well as existing college programs. Job Development officials are not aware of Job Entry priorities and vice versa. For example, a computer company in Ontario received $100,000 in computer equipment and $340,000 to train 50 people in computer skills as part of a contract; they made no commitment to continue training. Sir Sandford Fleming College in Peterborough contends that the federal government is setting up a more expensive and less effective private-sector system that duplicates what is already being done well at the college.

     Results will become increasingly important. A preliminary survey of C.J.S. graduates conducted by the C.E.I.C. indicates that 67 per cent of Job Re-Entry women have found work or gone on to further training. Compare this with the "old-style institutional training" results of 64 per cent. (Colleges would contest this figure!) However, no radical difference is apparent.

     Another more controversial issue affecting unionized college instructors and employees, many of whom are women, is competition over fees between private and public trainers. The federal government is forcing all trainers to deliver more service for the dollar. In many cases, colleges lose bids because of teaching costs. This may force colleges to make hard decisions.