This woman is one of 30,000 apprenticeships training for a career in
electronical engineering. She trains in the nationally-owned technology

works studio in Beriin.

FIRST IN A SIX-PART SERIES

A model for apprenticeships

By JIM TESTER

I was reading a national
women’s magazine the other day.
In it was an article about discrimi-
nation against women at service
garages when they have their cars
**fixed.”” 3

Two reporters, male and
female, were assigned to take
their cars to a half dozen garages
with identical trouble — a wire
pulled off a spark plug. Both went
to the same auto repair shops, but
at different times. Then they
wrote separate reports on their
experiences. Yes, women are
treated with a high-handed con-
tempt, just as we all have sus-
pected. The motor car is part of
the ‘‘man’s world.’’ A woman
isn’t even supposed to talk to an
auto mechanic, let alone go to a
garage herself to have her car re-
paired.

Not surprisingly, neither repor-
ter knew anything about what
‘went on under the hood.’’ The
young man complained he was
the victim of a liberal arts educa-
tion. He knew all about literature
and the stars, but he didn’t know

what made his car run/ I would
‘guess over half the male popula-
tion that is currently ‘‘burning
rubber’’, knows very little about
their vehicle, beyond where to in-
sert the key, steer and step on the
accelerator.

The fact that neither the young
man, nor young woman, knew
anything about the mechanical
functions in their cars is a com-
ment on our educational system.
The off-handed, less than courte-
ous service given the female
driver, says something about our
social values.

The young man needn’t have
been so apologetic about his lack
of mechanical understanding. A
few years ago, a young mechani-
cal engineering graduate from
Queen’s University complained
to me that two-thirds of his
class-mates had never worked on
a car engine! They only had vag-
ue, theoretical knowledge of in-
ternal combustion engines.

I knew what he was talking
about. In my _ half-century of
working in scores of shops as a
machinist, mechanic and mill-

Support for Grenada’s revolution

By NORMAN FARIA

ST. GEORGE’S, Grenada —
As we approached the dock in the
well-sheltered harbor we saw
none of the ferocious army pat-
rols and cowering populace the
doubting Thomases in Barbados
had warned us about.

_ We had been warned that the
March 13 Revolution in this small
West Indian island just north of
the South American coast was re-
ally a coup carried out by a hand-
ful of self-seeking upstarts.

But if the voyage over on the’

converted U.S. Army munitions
carner with its enormous 35
year-old two-stroke engine had
left our heads throbbing, it was
easy to discern even from the
boat’s rail, that all is wellin Gre-
nada. :
As we waited to clear immigra-
tion and customs, a line of trucks
carried off loads of cement and
general cargo from freighters ties
up just ahead of us. we could see a

passenger cruise ship anchored in’

the bay offshore and part way
down the dock tourists clamber-
ing ashore from their ferrying

craft. On St. George’s circular

main street (actually the rim of an
extinct volcano) people were
walking, driving and going about
their daily chores. And on a
stevodore’s T-short we read the
message: ‘‘Forward, Yes! Back-
ward, Never!”

We were in Grenada. It was
- exactly three months after the col-
lapse of Eric Gairy’s brutal and
corrupt regime and the setting up
of a new revolutionary govern-
ment led by the island’s New
Jewel Movement (an acronym for
Joint Endeavor for Welfare,
Education and Liberation).

Like most of the other Com-
monwealth Caribbean island
states, Grenada is a poor develop-
ing country. What arable land is
found in its mountainous land
area of 130 square miles usually
belongs to large nutmeg, cocao
and banana estates, although

there are a surprising number of
small peasant plots.

“On taking over from Gairy,
the People’s Revolutionary
Government found such _inef-
ficiency that simple items like car-
rots could hardly be found in the
marketplace. Agriculture in Gre-
nada was indeed ina sorry state,”
Agriculture Minister Unison
Whiteman told us.

To correct this situation, the
People’s Revolutionary Govern-
ment (PRG) is carrying on a
number of studies that would lead
to the establishing and upgrading
of agricultural projects. Early one
morning in the blinding, beautiful
tropical sunlight which greeted us
wherever we went, we toured the
Ministry of Agriculture’s Produce
Laboratory where the govern-
ment is laying the groundwork for
the. mechanized production of
fruit products.

While in the island, the newly
elected government leaders of the
neighboring islands of Dominica
and St. Lucia were conferring
with PRG leaders and all of them
got together one Sunday after-
noon for-a mass rally at a football
field. The outpouring of solidarity
with the other islands spilled over
from the platform into an audi-
ence of 4,000 strong (According
to officials, a small rally compared
to others occuring since the over-
throw of Gairy). Not since the
days of the ill-fated 1958 West In-
dies Federation was there any-
thing like it. Such a contrast to the
traditional insular policies, the re-

PACIFIC TRIBUNE— AUGUST 31, 1979—Page 4

Forward Yes! Backward

cent move by the Barbados
government to stop temporary
cane-cutters from neighboring
St. Vincent to come to Barbados
being an example, of most island
governments. :
After the rally we walked down
the road leading back to St.
George’s, a town which up until
recently was the scene of virulent,
often bloody skirmishes with
Gairy’s army and secret police.
Now it is calm. It is a vigilant
calm because the PRG is still ex-
pecting Gairy to try and regain
power, wherever we went, we
were told that Gairy has made
contacts with anti-Cuban
government elements in Miami.

This type of awareness was.

strikingly borne out when we took
a bus ride 15 or so kilometres up
the west coast to the town of
Gouyave. Foolishly, we snapped
photos out of the windows of the
bus. Because the route clung to
the coastline, we occasionally got
a beach scene in our picture
frame. On arriving back in town
after the round trip, we were po-
litely questioned on the purpose
of our visit by one of the passen-
gers and a security person whom
she had summoned.

Prime

Never!

Because of the possibility of the
external threat by counter-revolu-
tionaries, People’s Revolutionary
Army soldiers with AK-47 assault
rifles prominently displayed could
be seen unobtrusively patrolling
in jeeps, especially at night. The
links between the PRA and the
local population is close and
understanding — nothing like the
brutal activities of Gairy’s dis-
banded private secret police (cal-
led the ‘‘Mongoose Gang”’ after a
weasel-like animal renowned for
its ferocious bite), a force whose
atrocities included the murder of
Prime Minister Maurice Bishop’s
father. At the Sunday rally a
smart military display by PRA

units was wildly applauded by the

audience.

It would be a lie to say that the
Grenadian Revolution is without
problems — there is still some
begging in the streets, for example
— but the impression one gets on
a visit here is that the People’s
Revolutionary Government, rep-
resenting and ably supported by
the broad mass of the Grenadian
people, is moving to alleviate
these hardships and put the is-
land’s social and economic in-
stitutions on a new course.

Minister Maurice Bishop of Grenada speaks at a mass rally in

St. George’s on July 15. The interest in their own situation does not stop
the people from extending solidarity to other nation’s struggles.

-one of those trade unionists wht -

oe
ap ere

wright I have met a great many
university graduates in engineel)
ing. Most of them only began 10)
relate their theoretical knowledge]
to practical problems, when they
rubbed shoulders with skilled
workers on the job. 7
What happens when the nuit
bers of tradesmen and level of
skills begins to decline? Recently
ournews media, and variouslevel)
of government, have discove!
this is precisely what is happet
ing. We have a double-headed)
problem: we are not trainin)
nearly enough apprentices; thé
flow of skilled immigrants is diy
ing up. Al
Some of us have been aware of
the problem for some time. I w#)_
one of the few lucky ones wh?)
served an apprenticeship and be
came a tradesman during tif
‘‘Hungry Thirties.’”” I was als?)

fought, through the years, for sy*
tematic apprentice training. One
of the founders of the Cana

skilled trades council in #8
Autoworkers’ Union, I was chil
union steward in the West Plal
Toolroom at General Motors #

training of apprentices. We
lieved the key to preserve and &
tend trade standards was in 0%
education of the younger genel@)
tion. |

We weren’t far wrong.

In Sudbury, in recent years, 0
trade unions have been workifi
together to jointly promote #
creased apprenticeships. Thé
have been seeking to tie them inl?
the educational institutions, S$
as the community colleges. Som
educators, and even some eit
ployers, have been showing
terest.

But it is clear, there has to be?
much better perspective on tht
whole problem, which is. not 0
complex, cutting across educ®
tional, industrial and social rel#
tions, but for which we have vé
little historic experience. U®
now, we have largely relied %)
imported skills, brought here Uf
immigrants who were products
vocational training system
largely in European countil ;
whose apprenticeship metho#
are legendary. 2

European apprenticeship Sh
tems make a fascinating study: ;
my view, the GDR approach FT
vocational training tops them ®
That’s why, for two years, 1 po
sistently negotiated through
Canada-GDR Committee fot
personal look at how their syS¥”,
of apprenticeships works in P'
tice, a first-hand view. ae

What I saw in a 342 week tourt.
the GDR in May, fully confit
their vocational training is SYi
tematic, thorough and scié
fically based, flowing nat hod
out of their polytechnical sc™
system. Both boys and girls a
ceive a sound, practical 10-Yo 4
education to prepare them vit
the basics to fit into a mod All
technological society.
specialist training proceeds
the same solid base. s¢

It isn’t a model we can ¥ ;
holus-bolus in North Amet™
but it shows what can be done:
does indicate the correct
tion, from which we can le qt
great deal. If we are prepal®
look! oad
(next week: clearing the
blocks) |