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Help Save the Electrical Trade
The Howard Government deregulated the labor market, and has now funded the National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) to come up with a new deregulated electrical licesing system.
NECA''s deregulated model smashes the traditional apprenticeship system that produces licensed electricians (trained to Certificate 3), the system that has served us so well for over 100 years.
The new NECA system is not in the interests of contractors, existing workers or young Australians wishing to enter the industry
The existing apprentice and licensing arrangements are crucial to profitability, the security of employment, and safety of workers and the general public. Our trade is a proud trade. We do not want to be converted from skilled tradespeople into groups of cable jerkers, conduit fixers and connections jockeys.
NECA’s plan will mean less certainty in the industry, and push many companies into insolvency. There will be cut-throat competition, with competing installation firms paying peanuts and doing only narrow, specialist areas of work.
Many electrical contractors strongly oppose NECA’s plans. They know they need experienced, well-rounded electricians to get the job done. They know it will destroy the profitability in contracting.
FUTURE GENERATIONS
Breaking the trade up into narrow, specialist tasks will push young people into boring, dead-end jobs, with no future. This will be bad for Australia as a whole. Our apprenticeship system has given generation after generation of Australians the chance to set themselves and their families up for a secure future.
At the moment, the existing “apprentice-training package” contains the contract the employer signs for a full traditional apprenticeship. This guarantees employers train an apprentice to a fully qualified, A Grade electrician Apprentices come out of their time with the full set of skills and a range of employment opportunities. Throwing this away on some “deregulatory ideological agenda” is madness. SAFETY
The electrical contracting industry is a unique industry. A simple mistake can cost a life. There is no place for half- trained people in this industry. Under NECA’s deregulated model, accidents and fatalities will surely increase. NECA’s proposal to create "multiple entry and exit points", where half-trained apprentices with limited competency can be put to work in the industry, and kept at any level without progressing, will mean appretinces become hostage to employers. NECA has completely lost its way, and is now in John Howard’s deregulationist pocket.
This new system has been sponsored by people sitting in ivory towers in the big end of town. They have never been electricians, and have never worked in the electrical industry. Electrical workers and electrical contractors have had no input into this new system. We must stop NECA.
All electricians need to make sure their boss knows about this new system, and get their boss to protest to the boss’s union – NECA.
Call a meeting at your worksite today. Tell your workmates what NECA is doing. Send off the email to NECA, below.
Get your boss to write to NECA and demand NECA change its position.
Get your boss to pull the plug on NECA.
NECA National Office
Level 3,
100 Dorcas Street
South Melbourne VIC 3205
Telephone: 03 9645 5566
Facsimile: 03 9645 5577
View the NECA proposal
A2 Poster
A5 Handbill
Letters
NECA Leaflet
Let them know what you think
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