Inclusion of Jobless Due to Plant Closures in New Economy

Convenor:  Ainslie Watt,  Participants:  Steve Sachs, Joyce Young, David Pelly, Derek Nash< Len Carter, Paul Nijjar, Rhonda Lee

Ageism is an issue - what are the strategies to get around it?

Need to advertise talents of elderly more than do now and that thought processes can be valuable to business, govt and organizations.  Putting value to years of experience.  First step is to start process to ease workers back into the economy with gov't programs.  We have a lot of knowledge and experience that needs to be made valuable.  Access is important.

Switching jobs more frequently is much more flexible currently and important for older populations to also wrap their heads around.

Dichotomy between blue collar Kitchener vs. tech-focused Waterloo.  Retraining programs need to be adapted to needs of mature learner and companies need to be more open to hiring those who are older due to reliability and experience.  Need to be proactive.

Attitude of older individuals and businesses critical to seeing opportunities available in the community.

Problem really larger due to language, social and age barriers taken together.  Opinion that if manufacturing brought back this would include those who are seeking jobs with skills sets.  Manufacturing one area that can absorb skills of those workers.  Also open up broader view of incorporating older people into the economy.

John Tibbits mentioned as a thought leader for the region and expansion of possibilities.  Controversy expressed between Colleges and Universities.  Disagreement about John being out of touch on manufacturing trades and academic focus. 

People's expectations with their skills set are out of line with the reality.  Integrating people with limited skills sets will be difficult if individuals have an expectation they don't have to adapt or change but want to claim a stake in the new economy.

Govt is spending 3 million in integrating older work force.  But for seniors who are being integrated there is no funding, mostly spent on  are really an after thought.  Priorities and the "vote" is changing.  Imbalance between older and younger worker.  

Manufacturing based on older people's skills set and younger people not replacing that skill set.  Solution is to have age-reversed apprenticeships, so paired with younger workers.

Amend use of work "senior" to experienced work force.  Problem with ageism.

Heard from D Pelly who had lost 35 years of work in the trucking industry and feels angry with fed govt and economic policies.  Is filing a class action law suit - on a fraudlent monetary system.   Go to whatmoney@execulink.com  and visit website at whatmoney.org for more information.   Wants to get paid for what he did, collect and then retire.  Is burnt-out.

**  Derek Nash Summary of group conversation:  Older displaced workers and issue of succession planning around knowledge train and lost skills.  Issue of technology transition in general.  Overriding problem is human resource challenge at both ends of human resource train in terms of experience. Come out of work force at different levels of experience and as work availability changes, people are coming out prematurely = displaced work force.  Trying to "get on the work wagon" and those "just getting off the work wagon".    Summary by Derek Nash - ex-automotive engineer/worker.  Changing dynamics of human resource and how to get people back into work force in most productive slots.  Govt and individuals both struggle with this.  As minimum wage edges up, UI won't pay anywhere near what a job will.

Challenge is - How to stay employed and how to stay current?  How to introduce technology to people with a wide range of skills, language, technology, communication.

Winning Teams Program at Magna International - Story of grassroots methodology for problem solving (as long as have idea can get it translated) taking experience and translating it so that people at various skill levels can have inputs added like a problem solving exercise.  Provides a framework for translating ideas into a dollar value to select projects with various ranges of skill and experience.  Higher end brings technical resources and everyone provides creative input for particular challenge.

Comment that if more firms thought that way they would care more about a workforce and less likely to lay off.

Trying to come to grips with problems and challenge of trying to solve them without people losing self-worth, jobs.  It is important to use problem solving techniques.  

Problem with whole industry being shipped abroad.  Business strategies to export and grow globally, but what's happening is that everyone magnetized to China for its resources and here in Canada we are trying to hang on and find a way to "close the door".  Whole situation is very overwhelming.

Dignity of job application is missing.  Handing job application in person is one strategy that addresses the hidden content of just having a resume that gets overlooked.  People have resumes that mean nothing on paper and e-resumes are guilty of this.  Competition between recently graduated/trained and those with experience.  Direct contact experience missing.

Establishing teams to work towards problem solving missing from older workforce cultures and experience.  Auto manufacturing in Toyota didn't lay anyone off. Found ways to keep people on with seminars, projects, work groups to encompass people and develop new ideas.  "They did a wonderful job", says Len Carter the Labour Market president.

Example given by Len Carter that this is part of Toyota's work culture.  Toyota policy versus GM policy, written or defacto, is "survival of the fittest".  Need to change North American thinking and culture.  Feels it is "predatory".

Believes Toyota is a good contributor to the community - corporate culture makes a difference, but they also bring their own suppliers.   Magna International given as example as being internally competitive.  Mosaic of different industrial cultures - winners and losers.  GM has old-style thinking leading to demise.