Unexpected opportunities for personal growth don’t often come with a neon sign advertising the embedded chance for accruing helpful knowledge. It is left to the person navigating through the mundane of the everyday to stay aware for when these things might crop up, capitalize when they do, and then work to remember what we learn when the gloss wears off.
In the business world, the titles we use to describe a individual’s work, often carry certain connotations about their skills or “rank” within an organization. In fact, in many cases, simply sharing the title or label of your work can change how another may view you. For instance, a weekend DIY warrior at a home renovation store may get a little more attention from their sales attendant by sharing they are a lawyer, as the salesperson may assume a certain financial status of the shopper and decide that an extra five minutes up-selling to a higher-end faucet will be a good investment of their time. With a little reflection, you’ll probably realize that it’s a pretty standard practice – to what extent is your opinion of a person shaped by the answer to the question, ‘so what do you do?’
Why do we tie the value of a person to the occupation they decide to take on? The most likely reason stems with the leftover legacy of a time when there were no public safety nets and the surest way for a family to thrive was to have as many economic contributors as possible, as quickly as possible. A time when the term ‘breadwinner’ was a little more literal, as there was no food bank downtown if the cash jar ran out.
My own grandfather was not given the chance to go to university, despite a strong desire to do so. In the eyes of his father, he had already missed out on many good work years by finishing high school. Further education often had to take a back seat to the reality of life, which unfortunately meant that many great minds were never given the opportunity to fully flourish. It also meant that there was typically a healthy supply of labour for the jobs that are often labeled “unskilled” – a term that is not only inaccurate, but grossly under accounts for the value and importance of these jobs.
I was first introduced to this terminology during our farm’s many fruitless attempts to assist some close Kenyan friends come to Canada through the Temporary Foreign Workers Program. Through the process, our farm had to delineate between low skilled and high skilled streams, each with their own set of paperwork but only the high skilled stream offering a path to becoming a Canadian. While there have been a couple tweaks to this program to increase options for coming to Canada, we still segregate into boxes – the box just says ‘low wage’ instead of ‘low skill.’
Why are we still doing this? Why do we think that there is greater worth in the manager than the entry-level position? Why is a hardworking ‘low skill’ worker less worthy of an opportunity to pursue citizenship? It is antiquated thinking that doesn’t reflect how the workplace is evolving and our current labour force realities. A company can survive through daily operations for a period of time with every senior leadership chair empty as long everyone else keeps showing up for work. Conversely, that same leadership team is out of luck immediately if the folks that work the line don’t show up.
We need to ditch the thinking that encourages professions to be ranked by importance based on financial metrics. We are learning right now that wage rates or education have no bearing on importance to society – it is how the job you do is connected to the realities of life. That is why across every single trade is experiencing a dramatic shortage right now. We spent the entire 1980s and ‘90s telling Millennials that they needed to graduate high school, get a degree, and join the khaki army of middle management to avoid a trade job… or even worse – a job in a factory.
Beyond nurses and personal support workers, is there any group that sacrificed more during the pandemic then the men and women who punch a clock every single day, take their spot on the line, and flash a knife or run a press? The people who went to work every day, while others sat comfortably at home doing Zoom meetings and ordering their every need to be delivered to their doorstep. After all that our society and economy have been through the past 2.5 years, how do we still not recognize the importance of these jobs and the individuals who perform them? This weekend, data collected and analyzed by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board showed that no other group of people bore the real brunt of COVID more – manufacturing workers made up over a third of the fatalities here in Canada, according to the WSIB.
At the time of this writing, Ontario’s Education Minister, Stephen Lecce, has announced that the government will introduce legislation that will force members of CUPE to stay at work despite them following protocol and giving proper strike notice. How can members of the government negotiation team justify this position? At a time of great inflation, the Ontario government refuses to accept the compensation offered to CUPE members pales in comparison to the value they deliver and important role they play in the functioning of our eduction system. The tired phrase ‘respect the taxpayer’ often toted by Doug Ford and his cheerleaders at the local levels, seems to forget that respect comes with responsibility and that every CUPE member is also a taxpayer.
If Matthew Rae, Lecce, and Ford truly respected the taxpayer they would not have showered management with irresponsible raises over the past two years. The government claims they cannot give a raise to the people who clean our schools, spend extra hours with the kids that need it most, and the ones that pick them up while we as parents cannot be there. This government’s position is hypocritical, most notably on the wage front.
Consider this: in 2020 at the onset of the pandemic there were 225 total employees of Avon Maitland School Board appearing on Ontario’s Sunshine List. When the 2022 list was released that number had ballooned to 622 people, including Lisa Walsh, the current director of education, who saw her salary increase by 29.3 per cent in two years. During the same two years when we were told ‘we are in this together,’ the province saw it fit to grow senior management wages in health care and education by double digits while capping wages of those who do the frontline work.
My children’s education experience depends on two things more than most: dedicated, caring educators who love their craft, and support staff that keeps schools clean, safe, and open. In the coming weeks, don’t fall for the government messaging that CUPE is in it for their members and the money. There is only one money-hungry party here and it is the provincial government.
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Stewart Skinner is a local business owner, former political candidate, and has worked at Queen’s Park as a Policy Advisor to the Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs. He can be reached at stewart@stonaleenfarms.ca or on Twitter: @modernfarmer.
