Apprentices Pursue A Trade On The Dole
The Age
Thursday February 4, 1993
When Liz Henson was retrenched in her third year as an apprentice carpenter, she panicked. ``You spend all that time on really low wages and then if you don't manage to finish and get your papers it means that you go through all of that for nothing, " she said.
Ms Henson, who was sacked about a year ago, is a victim of the chronic slump in Victoria's building industry. Her employer, a small firm, could no longer afford to keep her on when business had slowed to a trickle.
She was not the only apprentice to be cast aside. Industry figures showed that thousands of trainees were tumbling out of the system.
About two years ago, there were almost 12,000 apprentices in the Victorian building industry. By September last year, the number had fallen to 7080.
Ms Henson thought she would never get the chance to finish her apprenticeship but yesterday she and a small team of unemployed apprentices were back on the road to graduating as qualified tradesmen and women.
Ms Henson was working for the dole building extra rooms in a hostel for homeless young people.
Under a special statewide scheme for unemployed third- and fourth-year apprentices, almost 200 apprentices have worked for nothing to build offices, hostels, houses and meeting rooms for community organisations.
They receive unemployment benefits while they work and the work and training are recognised by the State Training Board. They become qualified tradesmen and women after serving the remainder of their four years.
The special assistance program was set up in late 1991 and is funded by the federal Department of Employment, Education and Training. It is supported and organised by building industry companies and training groups, unions, TAFE colleges and the State Government.
Primary schools, the Salvation Army, Parents without Partners and Kids Under Cover are some of the groups that have benefited from work by the apprentices.
The hostel that Ms Henson was working on yesterday is run by St John's Homes for Boys and Girls, one of the largest Anglican welfare agencies in the state.
Apprentices have also built an opportunity shop for St John's, and offices and rooms for counsellors dealing with troubled families.
St John's community relations manager, Ms Gabrielle Gelly, said the agency, like many other financially stretched welfare organisations, desperately needed to expand its capital works but could not afford to do so.
``This scheme has been fantastic for us because it's meant that we can help hundreds more families and children by building more facilities," she said. ``And it then frees up our budgets to provide more services for people." Construction Skills Training is one of the building industry training groups that matches some unemployed apprentices to community groups needing work done.
Mr Lewis Derrico, a spokesman for the group, said unions were satisfied with the scheme because the apprentices were not taking work from qualified, employed tradesmen and women. This was because the building projects involved work that would not usually be commissioned by community groups because they could not afford to pay for it.
© 1993 The Age