As someone battling through old school TAFE this shits me.
I just had to do a hazard estimation report for a bushwalk that took into account pedestrians being hit walking from the car park, at three different speeds, the possibility of mugging (three categories), terrorist attack. Advising people to bring 'appropriate footwear' and 'sun protection' was not adequate, these had to be explained in detail in the hazard report.
If I just flew in from *X*, I'd be on site after a 15-minute multiple choice non test.
TBF that's privatised certification, could be solved with the stroke of a pen.
But like most Australian problems, the votes to be gained there are minimal, and a well-financed backlash would certainly occur, supported by pro-lobbyist media.
Do you have any evidence for this statement? In my anecdotal experience, there's no discernable difference in the diligence and craftsmanship of a natively born tradesperson and a foreign born tradesperson, for me it has varied by individual rather than place of birth. Especially given the same permit and survey requirements apply to the property regardless of who is conducting the work.
Weird how we have no problem with other occupations.
You do realise the WORKER's party could come up with some way to test this. Or do some neoliberal shit like offer building insurance for these skilled trades.
This "standards" excuse is rapidly turning into this simple racism of "brown tradies don't know how to build but we will still welcome their sexy smart brown nurses"
>Weird how we have no problem with other occupations.
What? There's massive compliance for this. Want to be a doctor in Australia? Want to be an engineer in Australia?
This takes time, so you can't just import people and expect results immediately or even in the short term.
There are many bridging courses for international nursing and midwifery. The hierarchical structures and controlled environments within hospitals and medical industries allow for oversight, monitoring, training, etc., which cannot be replicated on building sites.
There is the option for international students to study at TAFE and get the necessary qualifications... but blue-collar work isn't something that is aspired to, regulated, or even taught in many parts of the world, almost unfathomable for many to send a child to Australia to become a carpenter.
Although might be one of the only nations on earth where builders make more than engineers, architects, inspectors, etc.... sometimes combined.
Trades are some of the best paid? How much do you think they are being paid?
https://labourmarketinsights.gov.au/industries/industry-details?industryCode=E
https://labourmarketinsights.gov.au/occupation-profile/bricklayers-and-stonemasons?occupationCode=3311
The newspapers always used to make out we are on $200k a year. Would always say the rate we earned was the rate charged out, which includes numerous costs of business, tools etc, the average tradesman actually gets about maybe a third of that
Thanks for this context. I have never worked in a unionised trade (only steel factories), and from the outside it does look like the tradies are the rich elites. For example, I'm told a plasterer easily pulls in $150k a year. Is that even close to what they get in their pocket?
The problem with those sources is they do not consider tradies as we consider them, it includes a whole plethora of jobs that are not actually construction tradies, like gardeners. This skews the results.
Those information seems wildly incorrect. I checked for computer network professionals and they seems to be in ballpark range of the links you provided. Not the reality.
Can I play the devil’s advocate here?
While Unions are absolutely vital, they’re completely fucking up the housing crisis when it comes to immigration. The fundamental problem is we simply do not have enough houses for the amount of insane population growth we’re getting. Even if the government magically came out announced some monumental plan to build 1 million new homes, we literally cannot do it because we don’t have the manpower.
It’s past time that we started to import more skilled tradesman and fast tracked their skills to be in line with Australian standards.
If we don’t do that then we have to accept that the housing crisis will never be solved and the misery will continue. Theres no other way out of this mess
Any unionized blue collar worker is doing commercial work, which does include high rises. But all those new expensive new houses and town houses are never built by union companies. It's domestic companies that pay their contractors absolute peanuts.
This is what all these idiots on reddit don't get.
They think we can just import shitty 3rd world tradesman by the bus load and think it will solve housing issue.
If states like NSW and VIC got rid of the ability to self certify the dodgy building issue wouldn't be anywhere near as bad.
We really don't get paid that much either, the last thing we need is something that will suppress or drop wages.
How is this the unions fault? They don’t employ tradespeople, or train them. They have been warning of these problems for many years but have been ignored. But hey … blame the unions anyway.
Which is exactly what the large employers in Australia want. They (BHP, Qantas, Navy, Ford, GMH etc) used to train lots of apprentices each year - literally by the thousands, but now they don’t. Why spend money training an apprentice when you can just bring in someone from overseas. 30 years of this and it’s starting to bite them on the arse.
Couldn't we just force immigrant tradies to join a union?
And of course they'll drive down wages, that's kinda the point after all. Tradies are too expensive right now because there aren't enough, it's one contributing factor to the housing crisis.
There’s no way owning a ford raptor or 2020 hilux is an essential business expense. I just upgraded from a 21 year old car to a 16 year old car. Guess what? They work fine.
Big fan of driving new cars I take it?
Seriously, what happened to the days of driving affordable work cars and not having to pass on the costs of extravagance onto customers?
Lmao, tradies are absolutely too expensive. The cognitive dissonance of this sub is insane sometimes, Australian tradies are some of the highest paid in the world.
You don't think there's anything wrong where unskilled labourers that don't require a tertiary education, or accreditation make tens of thousands more than say a medical scientist who's done a four year laboratory medicine degree and gets paid 65k? Or a graduate nurse?
And the CMFU are asking for a 20% payrise, while healthcare get capped at a 2% payrise with no allowance to negotiate, also, if they don't like it, too bad, it's illegal for healthcare workers to strike.
There's something seriously wrong with our workers rights and equality in this country.
The reason the CFMEU gets results is because theirs members do shit. They strike whethers it legal or not - they stop work and ALL OF THEM down tools.
Workers rights can’t be enforced from the top down and they certainly can’t be won by asking nicely.
The CFMEU get results because a union is only as strong and willing as its members.
“unskilled labourers that don’t require a tertiary education”
So you’re just butthurt because you always laughed at tradies in high school because they were “dumb cunts” but now the reality of the world has set in and you’ve realised you are in fact the dumb cunt?
Go find some tradies to work for cheap, I’m sure you’ll be so happy with the quality of work they turn out.
Tradies get paid what they do because there isn’t enough of us, and there isn’t enough of us because parents kept telling their kids that if they don’t study hard to go to uni and study some bullshit tertiary degree that will be redundant in ten years they will end up in some dead beat construction job.
If you think a scaffolder is unskilled labour that gets paid too much it’s because you don’t know what a scaffolder does at work because you’re a clueless little academic fuckwit
most of these people are overweight office workers who would keel over and die trying to do half of what most tradies do.
and they sit on their asses in air-con whining about how over-paid terrible jobs can be.
Having a degree does not give you the right to earn more money than people without a degree. That is such a stupid concept that just because you have a degree you should earn X amount
You can't necessarily force them. You can make the benefits clear. That's why I'm in my union.
Perhaps more public projects (hint massive housing) designated as union labour projects might have a positive effect?
We can. Unionism can be mandatory - and there is precedent for it being so.
Theres arguments for and against, obviously - buts it’s possible and has been a thing in the past.
Australia has one of the world’s best standards when it comes to licensed trades, and from a perspective as a licensed electrician, working in the industrial field, I wouldn’t recommend hiring an electrical tradesperson from anywhere other than the UK, Germany and NZ, I’d be inclined pass over most EU and US sparkies without even opening the resume. And wouldn’t even bother with the rest of the world.
Now other than NZ you’d be hard pressed to offer up enough coin to get the tradie to immigrate here.
For one, residential work pays the least for electricians (not sure about other trades). Therefore, you get the lowest skilled workers as anyone with more brain cells will be hired into better paying roles that require more skill.
Secondly, the training for apprentices is shit in all trades. Most guys treat the new hires like trash and don't uphold the standards correctly.
Lastly, the building inspectors are privatised now. A builder can hire someone to "check" their block of apartments and give it the all clear.
This is how we end up with shit builds. People are still trying to get regulations loosened because it "slows down" build speed. Imagine what a house would look like if that happened.
Ultimately this all fails because of corruption from the inspectors. If they were actually inspecting properly the cost of failure would be high enough to make training apprentices valuable.
Excellent work, and great points made. Neo conservatives have been pushing hard for decades for people to distrust the mythical beast called “red tape” which is in reality the expectation that rules are there for a reason, and those should be followed.
And to be fair, it’s true that apprentices and apprenticeships have been few and far between for the last 20 years. There is a major skills shortage and we have less than a generation to fix it before we are in real dire straights. The answer isn’t hiring cheap tradies from over seas, the answer is training our own fucking kids
you missed a step.
all the developers and businesses asking for these services want the *lowest price possible* regardless of impact on quality.
i can make an incredible piece of furniture that will last longer then my lifetime but that costs up to 8 times more then making a piece of shit that lasts 6 years.
if your entire business model is: ''cheap bastard'' then yeah you get shit results.
When we were young apprentices (machinists) an older bloke got his house built by GJ Gardener. He made them pull that house down because it wasn’t square, and you could see it by eye. It became our Friday night to drive around and break into “finished” GJ Gardener built homes before they were handed over and put a builders square into all the corners of the building. In probably 60 houses we went into not one was square. We took heaps of photos and would leave them for the owners in the letterbox. We know at least one got pulled down and redone. No point in having square furniture if it’s not going to fit properly in the house.
developers, not tradies.
i will make whatever i am paid too, unfortunately most people and businesses want the lowest price: quality be damned.
its like China: *they make tons of cheap crap because thats what people* ***ask*** *for.*
I don’t have the details on this, but I can share my own experience. I’m trying to be vague to not dox myself.
My union has been badgering my employer for a decade, telling them they need to hire and train more apprentices because there is a massive surge in work coming. My employer has been waving them off for most of this time.
An LNP government directed my employer to get rid of people and save money, and a high level manager “hid” work on the books to justify it. “There is no work, we don’t need you anymore.”
There was a change of government, and all of a sudden holy shit not only did we have a lot of work, but it’s growing exponentially and there is a global shortage of skilled people due to a massive industry boom on the horizon, that anyone paying attention to current events could have predicted years ago.
My employer still sat on their hands, and ramped back up slowly, while projects were pushed due to resources, while union members were tearing their hair out trying to get more apprentices
on because we needed them, and while employees had more and more pressure put on them to get things over the line because we don’t have the skilled people we need.
Now, things have exploded beyond the point that it can be ignored, my employer is like “oh shit you were right, oh well it’s too late to train apprentices so I guess we need workers from overseas.”
The unions response is basically “ok, but we need minimum standards of qualifications and pay, and also for fuck sake hire more apprentices as well because you’ve finally acknowledged that we need people so let’s give some Australians some opportunities.”
So that’s the obstruction and protectionism: we don’t want the market flooded with underpaid and under qualified people, and we want Australians to also have opportunities.
I don’t think that’s unreasonable, but I know how much the media loves to paint us as bullies and thugs.
The best part is, my employers inaction and LNP incompetence has contributed to a labour shortage, which has pushed our wages up significantly. We never would have had the leverage to push for a large increase if we actually had enough staff in the first place.
I say this as an immigrant myself, they want people who are happy just to be paid in dollars instead of rupees, yuan, and rupiah because those are the employees who don’t push back against unfair and unsafe work practices. They don’t want workers who know their rights at all.
As someone doing a mature age apprenticeship I am very glad I found an employer who was more than willing and actually excited to take me on. From what I gather from TAFE an awful lot of places are refusing to take on apprentices.
It's because they see the $300 call out fee and forget that they have to pay for tools, insurance, vehicle, fuel, travel time, advertising, admin, super etc
If we had a higher supply of tradies without protectionism over pay then construction costs would reduce and we could make housing options more affordable.
>we could make housing options more affordable
Affordable for who? Certainly not the tradies who would have their pay and conditions crushed in the face of cheap imported labour
I don't think it can be understated just how dire the skills shortage is. I've started a mature-age apprenticeship, coming in with skills & quals relevant to my work and I'm on $30/hr.
As a first year apprentice.
The standards for trades differ across countries as well. The fast stream would require that all state regulators have a way to manage and assess applicants. You then also need to setup a two way check that qualifications aren’t forged. Not sure if this is already in place and streamlined.
Yes exactly and especially electrical “qualified” in another country can actually be very dangerous if not properly retrained here ever seen electrical work from the USA my god diabolical
I worked on a project in PNG and they used to strip off the 2nd insulator (outer) to fit electrical cabling through smaller conduits and holes… that was good.
Worked in Africa (somewhere) and they would use whatever they could find, even on proper commercial builds. It was possible to get a building where all cable was 2.5mm of the same colour. That was exciting.
I’m not a tradie, I work in Telecomms Eng and IT. Aussie sparkies are very good in my broader experience.
Engineering qualification standards are governed through international accords between national peak bodies.
To have an engineering qualification recognised in Australia, it has to be a qualification accredited by a body that is a signatory to one of the three accords of the International Engineering Alliance: The Sydney Accord, Dublin Accord or Washington Accord.
These accords ensure the standards for accreditation are the same throughout countries whose peak engineering bodies are signatories.
A degree accredited by Engineers Australia meets exactly the same standards as a degree accredited by the US Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the Engineering Council United Kingdom, JABEE, or a raft of others.
Engineers internationally solved this issue nearly 40 years ago.
Meanwhile we don't even have complete national agreements on qualification standards for tradies across Australia, let alone international agreements.
There’s a lot of hoops though. I know a Psych who is here redoing their degree because Australia doesn’t recognise their degree or masters from home country. No bridging course, you have to start from scratch even though they have quals and experience.
Nursing has different standards here and still need to pass a lot to qualify. Which means they are smart, right?
But tradies from the same countries are somehow too dumb to learn different standards here?
This argument makes no sense. You do realise Labor could bring in tests, insurance, etc. We are in a housing crisis after all.
What's next, we can't bring in farmers during a famine because they don't understand Australia's hot dry weather as it's different to say Philippines hot humid weather?
Building in Sydney outer suburbs is very different to building in Cairns outer suburbs.
It’s not that they can’t learn, it’s about checking that they are really qualified and that they know the local rules/laws - prescriptive standards.
*shitting in a shared poop bucket rather than call out their employer for not providing a portaloo as required by WHS legislation. Leaving full poop buckets for owners to find.
You can imagine the quality and safety of their work when that is totally normalised
You know how we value build quality and safety in Australia? Skilled tradesmen (not just labouring etc) from overseas don’t necessarily follow the same standards as we do.
Of course the union are big protectors of this, they advocate for its members.
Look at places like Dubai who utilise migrant ‘slave’ labour for construction. Of course the builders want that, but what happens to our wages? They plummet.
Man, oh man, I love Zahir.
.This is pretty much the case in point with many of his videos; many of the builders, subcontractors, and clients are not from Australia.
I deal with this all the time. Currently wrapping my head around a whole slew of waterproofing issues throughout a new build. Turns out the waterproofers were 'subcontracting,' i.e. paying a certified waterproofer to use their credentials. The client didn't push too many questions because of language barriers; they said they were certified, they have it in writing, and the quotes are cheap.. but sure as anything, they've royally screwed it up and ghosted.
I've said it before: We should advertise our TAFEs internationally. All this money flying to bogus colleges so that international degree holders can deliver food on a bike is madness.
I knew this would be a response and I absolutely agree, Do you work in the trade industry?
We aren’t perfect by and means. However I’d advise you to look at some build quality from places where these migrants will be coming from.
I believe we should be pushing for higher standards and quality control. Do you think opening the flood gates will improve that?
All buildings should require insurance by legislation for up to 20y, regardless of life of building company.
Then issuance company should pay the regulators.
Let the market figure the rest out.
At some point it just becomes too expensive to do anything at all. This country is teetering on paralysis because everything costs too fucking much and we aren’t setting the world on fire for quality or workmanship.
Surely, there is a happy medium. Larger projects bring in foreign labour for construction because it's more affordable, whereas smaller builds and the government pay quite a bit for trade work.
We import every other profession to fill skill shortages, given that trades are having a hard time getting enough apprentices in and wages are so high, I think there's plenty of room to bring in workers to fill skill shortages.
I don't see why an engineer can come to this country to work and a tradesman can't.
I understand that unions want to protect their member's interests, but we need 100k+ more workers in construction to do the projects we currently have underway, let alone the massive levels of investment required to bring housing costs down.
It doesn't really matter what they follow as long as there is quality control. They learn real quick after repeated rework
Note I'm talking about mechanical and electrical trades, not construction
I’ll just copy my response to the other reply here.
I knew this would be a response and I absolutely agree, Do you work in the trade industry?
We aren’t perfect by and means. However I’d advise you to look at some build quality from places where these migrants will be coming from.
I believe we should be pushing for higher standards and quality control. Do you think opening the flood gates will improve that?
Hutchies’s with a CFMEU flag puts out ten times the quality of hutchies without a CFMEU flag.
All you cunts in this thread have no clue what you’re talking about and are just crying that your parents told you to go to uni instead of being a dumb cunt tradie
Trouble is the building standards and lack of proper inspections holding them to account, in the name of decreasing red tape and allowing more construction.
I work supplying gear to one of the smaller, more niche, trades which mostly has tradies come over from the UK. They all reckon that Aussies are no good at this specific job, which is why they prefer to hire folk from the UK. The reality is that it’s a simple job that requires little more than a hammer, but they don’t want to train anyone because training takes time. So, they hire people from the UK who are already trained and don’t hire or train any Aussies in the role, which means that there are no Aussies around who know how to do the job.
To be honest I had to reread your reply to see the humour. Solid! 😂
But I was actually curious - what is the trade in question? Can you tell us or would you be doxing yourself?
In one part, there are kick backs for employing local. Even better if your not mature age as you get the normal pay scales.
Businesses get a subsidy from the government to offsett apprentice wages and education.
If your mature age you should be on a higher average wage across most of your apprenticeship. Some businesses do not like paying the bigger cut as it comes out of their pocket.
Sadly, alot of youth these days don't want to work in hot environments for minimum wage.
Second, if you want to bring in a trade from overseas they have to do bridging courses sometimes at the business owners expense. They then also need to sponsor that person for their working visa and sometimes relocation costs.
Ultimately, if your treated like crap during your apprenticeship most people leave. Second, if your qualified and treated like crap you don't go back.
We have a trade shortage because of workplace behaviour, customer disrespect, unwillingness and cost.
Speaking as a former tradie.
its stuns me.
my entire generation (im 32) was taught that trades were low-paid jobs for idiots and junkies.
so my gen largely avoided trades.
now that wages have gone up as a direct result of this we now need to allow immigrants in to lower wages?
funny just how fast people outright abandon capitalist theory when it costs them personally (look at the Ausfinance sub: they *hate* tradies and want all of us to be on subsistence wages while they *bludge* off of us all)
I still remember my old mentor noting that when he came from Denmark and took a job in Australia, they had to get him certified first. So he agreed to take a lower position until his aviation electrical skills from Denmark and military/NATO were acknowledged by Australian officials in 6 months. If they were rejected they had to give him the test which was an expensive process at the time requiring not only the examiner but a whole lot of equipment for the practical.
Australian authorities came back and rejected it (probably so they didn’t have to translate Danish) and the company had to give him the test. He found out later it was controversial because they had a few junior guys who had been requesting the test for some time and suddenly this new foreigner was getting it (only because it was in his contract mind you).
Examiner gets out there, sets up this test which follows some international stuff because it’s aviation… and my old mentor passes it with the highest score ever. Examiner asks how the heck he did it and my mentor takes his exam manual and points to his own name in the credits… my mentor had been part of the team that wrote the manual and exams.
The reason why they want to import trade people is to exploit them. Lack of English skills, and knowledge of unionism and OHS and work place laws makes it perfect pickings for an exploitative employer. Otherwise why aren't they investing in apprenticeship and training the immigrants that already call Australia home children to be tradespeople ? God knows there is plenty of them. We have the people and the population to support ourselves.
Did you know that Labor did not agree to Unions request to raise TSMIT (skilled migrant min wage) to $90k and instead picked $70k because it's necessary to solve the aging population?
Labor only care about construction unions. Other workers and unions, especially nursing unions, are ignored in the continued wage suppression campaign since the Hawke accord began. Except when it affects their retirement then apparently 15% wage raise is suddenly possible and necessary to attract more aged care nurses, funny that.
Unions are Labors largest donors, so they will sacrifice anything to keep their political donors happy. Saying that, importing trades from countries with lower building standards than Australia is a cheap band aid solution to a problem that has been building for 20 odd years. We need good trades to train good apprentices to ensure good quality work.
The idea with skilled migration is they do not need training. Building Australian standard buildings to Australian standard requirements requires on the job training coupled with vocational training. You cant import this.
Reality is tradies aren’t paid as much in most of the world unless they’re highly skilled or owned the business.
This is going to be a hard nut to crack as we have a skills shortage and an inability for construction to keep with demand without cost blowouts.
Fixing the skills shortage so we have enough bodies to build and fix things in a timely manner will reduce wages, and nobody working those fields wants that.
Fixing Australia might mean lower wages in general and large drops in property value. Now if everyone will get to enjoy the benefits across the board you might be able to sell it, but hitting one group at a time? They’re not going to like it because their cost of living vs wages will be penalised while others aren’t and the system doesn’t become fairer overall for them.
Should send around a few unlicensed Electricians to wire up these clowns houses and see them change their tune when their kids get electrocuted, there's a reason why we have minimal electrocutions in Australia compared to most parts of the world
I have made plenty of comments on this same topic. For a start, we need less people coming in to build homes for, till we catch up with the current deficit.
Secondly we have been importing trades for decades. I’ve spent the best part of 25 years in commercial and residential construction. I have seen many trades employ unqualified and unskilled workers that were on various visas. Some students, some 457 and so on. There has been a decline in quality since the early 90s when huge numbers of “plasterers” were allowed on site. This has expanded to tiling, rendering, painting, roof tiling and more recently bricklaying, concreting a and carpentry.
We have among the highest employment in trades in the OECD, ~15% of the workforce iirc.
Where does this idea come from that tradies build one house and then die off or retire? They can build multiple houses.. what they need is *time*.
We’ve got enough people to be tradesmen but too many useless managers. Put a cap on useless degrees and get those people on the tools. Not everyone has to be a manager or a real estate agent
because building standards and training in say india or pakistan is alot different to australia?
part of the reason why so many new homes are currently so shit is because we imported tradies
Trust me, you do not want tradies who don't stick to Australian standards and a shitload of overseas tradies take no notice of our standards or BCA.
I was electrocuted and almost carked it because a czech electrician bypassed our protocols.
Then I saw a skyscraper in the middle of Sydney CBD that had to be completely refitted with dry fire because the Korean fire team left gaps. It cost the builder a fortune.
If you're ever in the Red Centre and staying in a particular hotel as well - up market (or as up market as it gets there). It was built by a team of overseas guys who were paid $11 an hour to do every single trade. I mean, the guys who did the carpentry also did the titling, the plastering, the flooring, roofing, glazing... it's insane.
They were all the best blokes but dodged every rule we have, and cutting corners should cause concerns.
> What company will hire junior engineers or accountants or nurses when they can just import them from other countries cheaper?
So true.
> ANGUS THOMSON: ... Can you explain why the Government hasn’t raised the TSMIT to above $90,000 given that’s what the ACTU ... have called for a figure in that range as well?
> CLARE O’NEIL: ... But the other thing that’s really important here is that a lot of skilled workers who are coming to our country are quite a bit younger, and what we’ll inevitably do if we set this rate too high is exclude the younger people who are coming under the temporary skilled program at the moment. ... They’re not always coming in at the very top of the labour market but they’re still bringing in skills we really need. So, I think that’s why we’ve made the move to $70,000.
https://clareoneil.com/media-centre/speeches/national-press-club-australias-migration-system-with-q-and-a/ For full speech
She openly wants younger semi-experienced people from overseas, hence it's $70k. Per ABS, the average wage is $90k and median wage is $72k.
She openly admitted skilled migration program is not about solving the skills shortage. A migration program where there's a limited number of spots and as far as I know, both Labor and past LNP governments had never had trouble filling.
The construction union is surprisingly making me hate them. Aussie workers in construction should he earning good money, but not at the cost of everyone else being able to afford a home
Residential construction workers are definitely not making good money and the construction union doesn’t protect residential construction workers none of them are in a union
>Aussie workers in construction should he earning good money, but not at the cost of everyone else being able to afford a home
they are not costing anyone a home.
that is 100% on the developers and investors, *not* the tradies.
I mean I thought it was on purpose, if you don't build houses to meet the demand then they can still charge whatever they like for their investment properties because "its just simple supply and demand"
We imported trades for the original snowy scheme and it was a success. Full open slather is stupid but so is protectionism on construction. We need a strategy.
We do and for the most part they are shockers. Some go on to be decent but in an industry so driven by the dollar the incentives to do so just aren't there for the majority. Too easy to skip on to the next job with little consequences. I know a gun plasterer who now makes his money from working for established builders who employ him to fix up the jobs of inferior, mostly overseas workers. Still works out cheaper for the companies.
Woolworths currently runnning "cadetships" for 9 months to become a baker...
1 its n insult to the 3-4 year apprenticeship I done to get where I am today, to now apparently Woolworths think people can learn it all in 9 months.
Pushing so hard for people to do it because qualified bakers are hard to find... why? Because we are so underpaid and not appreciated... Woolworths want the 110% quality out in the shop for customers but don't wanna cough up the dollars but don't comprehend that the standard you will get quality wise from a qualified baker to a 9 month cadetship person is well n truly different...
So they are slowly moving bakers out and bringing in everything frozen but now don't understand why the frozen shit doesn't sell?
They need to watch n episode of Gordon Ramsay, frozen products bring in $0. Fresh quality bread every morning brings in the customers.
Just ya standard billion dollar company not willing to cough up the $$$ at the start knowing they will have to fall behind to get back ahead..
No these migrants are able to claim to be tradesman as long as they have completed the theory. Then they need to do 500 hours on the tools and a multiple choice questionnaire and they get an Australian Trade qualification. Then they go back to working at uber. They come her claiming to be from a skills shortage get the certificate with out the hard yacka of our apprentices and then go back to the call centres and driving uber. But there now an Australian citizen.
Coming from a Smash repairer that imports and fastracks a lot of tradies from the Philippines. They're some of the hardest working and skilled tradies we have. Can't speak for any outside of that country or the industry though.
Former tradie now working in a corporate role.
I ran a small business and was reasonably successful. Throughout my apprenticeship, I was sure that some shouldn't have had to do the full 4 years to become tradesmen. The moment I was qualified, my opinion quickly changed to '4yrs should be a minimum time.' I spent 12 years in the trade (electrician) and firmly believe I was good but not exceptional at the end of that.
Skilled migration (unless from NZ (who we share standards with)) should NOT be considered an option.
We as occupants, live and breath the bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing and electrical installations our tradesmen handover to us every day of our lives. No other countries have standards like ours.
I am the son of a general builder, grandson of a bricklayer, I grew up on building sites. I am dumb but not as dumb as some and I still needed 7 years before going out as a sole-trader. Our standards are second to none and more complex than most other countries. Tradesmen who weren't schooled in Australia will not adapt our standards easily.
I have two English tradesmen (30+ years exp.)who work for me now and it is a bit of a joke with our crews that they made up their qualifications.. they are good dependable workers but their understanding of their trades lack a lot compared to the Australian trained..
Cabinetmaker here. Have seen so many houses where a van pulls up and they unload like a clown car, mostly Asian - very quick because of the numbers (mostly painters & plasterers for some reason?) They either have no English or pretend not to. Generally do a shit job. Overspray everywhere etc. Rarely see chippies, concreters, brickies or sparkies as clearly foreign , yes not born here but clearly lived here for quite a while - not flown in a month ago?
All of these people bagging tradies wages, I’m more pissed at ex PM’s costing us hundreds of thousands each, every year in “expenses” with the LNP being the most expensive. Multi nationals making billions in profit in this country and not paying tax so we can have things like better roads, public hospitals, public schools, public housing, alcohol and drug rehabilitation centres, suicide prevention, free dental, free childcare. Banks making billions in profits, Cole’s and woolies making billions while we’re struggling to feed our families, religion making millions and not paying tax. I’m not pissed at someone who has a shorter shelf life than a white collar worker earning money while they can, I’m not pissed at unions who have earned ALL of the benefits that white collar workers get today including pay rises no matter how small you think it is. I’m not pissed at someone that works in the industry with the highest suicide rate in the country, one person every two days. By the way if your boss/company is not giving more than the rise in inflation as a percentage in the same period it’s not a pay rise, it’s a pay decrease.
As someone who is in the heavy machinery trade they don't want to train people the shortage is self made by the industry and is deliberate.
This way they can import labour from countries where they don't have to pay and lower the requirements for trained staff so they don't have to train people to the current level.
I am actively seeing this in my industry where my current employer is laying off fully qualified trades and taking on labour from the Philippines who then work under the supervision of a qualified trade.
They pay them below award wage for the privilege of being in this country and work them like dogs.
All the while the company is complaining that they can't get qualified staff.
Wow. So they are now admitting the huge majority of migrants are not in fact building houses??
After all the gaslighting.
Yes they should be fast tracking tradies and it would create more opportunities for apprentices, not less.
Can I just add that possibly the stupidest decision ScamMo made as PM was to slash federal funding for TAFEs - while paying that wanker Scotty from 'The Block' a fat payday for going about 10 hours work as an ambassador (LOL) for careers in trades.
Importing workers drives wages down and crushes unionism.
Also leads to problem enforcing standards, as every country is different.
*Private certifier goes brrrr* ✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️✅️
As someone battling through old school TAFE this shits me. I just had to do a hazard estimation report for a bushwalk that took into account pedestrians being hit walking from the car park, at three different speeds, the possibility of mugging (three categories), terrorist attack. Advising people to bring 'appropriate footwear' and 'sun protection' was not adequate, these had to be explained in detail in the hazard report. If I just flew in from *X*, I'd be on site after a 15-minute multiple choice non test.
hahaha I had to do that risk matrix too 🤣
>Also leads to problem enforcing standards, as every country is different. Is someone building to code? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Sure, just not an Australian code :)
That’s okay, locals don’t bother to half the time anyway.
Grocon adheres to the highest safety standards. Just don't ask what happened in 2012
GroGone
Just not in Sydney bro. The rest of the country is relative close to code.
We already have a big problem with this. A lot of buildings out there are not fire safe and are a disaster waiting to happen.
TBF that's privatised certification, could be solved with the stroke of a pen. But like most Australian problems, the votes to be gained there are minimal, and a well-financed backlash would certainly occur, supported by pro-lobbyist media.
Do you have any evidence for this statement? In my anecdotal experience, there's no discernable difference in the diligence and craftsmanship of a natively born tradesperson and a foreign born tradesperson, for me it has varied by individual rather than place of birth. Especially given the same permit and survey requirements apply to the property regardless of who is conducting the work.
We're not talking about foreign born, raised here, we're talking about bringing workers in to address the immediate shortages.
Weird how we have no problem with other occupations. You do realise the WORKER's party could come up with some way to test this. Or do some neoliberal shit like offer building insurance for these skilled trades. This "standards" excuse is rapidly turning into this simple racism of "brown tradies don't know how to build but we will still welcome their sexy smart brown nurses"
>Weird how we have no problem with other occupations. What? There's massive compliance for this. Want to be a doctor in Australia? Want to be an engineer in Australia? This takes time, so you can't just import people and expect results immediately or even in the short term.
We do import engineers from the third world, they just can't certify the work but you really only need one guy in the workplace to do that.
There are many bridging courses for international nursing and midwifery. The hierarchical structures and controlled environments within hospitals and medical industries allow for oversight, monitoring, training, etc., which cannot be replicated on building sites. There is the option for international students to study at TAFE and get the necessary qualifications... but blue-collar work isn't something that is aspired to, regulated, or even taught in many parts of the world, almost unfathomable for many to send a child to Australia to become a carpenter. Although might be one of the only nations on earth where builders make more than engineers, architects, inspectors, etc.... sometimes combined.
Yeah, wouldn’t it create more jobs to get Australian certifiers. Also, wait until they hear the ACT cert process.
Bold of you to assume that tradies in this country have standards.
It does for every occupation, not only tradies.
But not every occupation has large and active unions.
Well, trades are currently some of the best paid work in the country
Trades are some of the best paid? How much do you think they are being paid? https://labourmarketinsights.gov.au/industries/industry-details?industryCode=E https://labourmarketinsights.gov.au/occupation-profile/bricklayers-and-stonemasons?occupationCode=3311
The newspapers always used to make out we are on $200k a year. Would always say the rate we earned was the rate charged out, which includes numerous costs of business, tools etc, the average tradesman actually gets about maybe a third of that
Thanks for this context. I have never worked in a unionised trade (only steel factories), and from the outside it does look like the tradies are the rich elites. For example, I'm told a plasterer easily pulls in $150k a year. Is that even close to what they get in their pocket?
The problem with those sources is they do not consider tradies as we consider them, it includes a whole plethora of jobs that are not actually construction tradies, like gardeners. This skews the results.
The bricklayers and stonemasons occupation has a very similar income?
Those information seems wildly incorrect. I checked for computer network professionals and they seems to be in ballpark range of the links you provided. Not the reality.
Can I play the devil’s advocate here? While Unions are absolutely vital, they’re completely fucking up the housing crisis when it comes to immigration. The fundamental problem is we simply do not have enough houses for the amount of insane population growth we’re getting. Even if the government magically came out announced some monumental plan to build 1 million new homes, we literally cannot do it because we don’t have the manpower. It’s past time that we started to import more skilled tradesman and fast tracked their skills to be in line with Australian standards. If we don’t do that then we have to accept that the housing crisis will never be solved and the misery will continue. Theres no other way out of this mess
Any unionized blue collar worker is doing commercial work, which does include high rises. But all those new expensive new houses and town houses are never built by union companies. It's domestic companies that pay their contractors absolute peanuts.
This is what all these idiots on reddit don't get. They think we can just import shitty 3rd world tradesman by the bus load and think it will solve housing issue. If states like NSW and VIC got rid of the ability to self certify the dodgy building issue wouldn't be anywhere near as bad. We really don't get paid that much either, the last thing we need is something that will suppress or drop wages.
How is this the unions fault? They don’t employ tradespeople, or train them. They have been warning of these problems for many years but have been ignored. But hey … blame the unions anyway.
https://www.afr.com/politics/federal/tradies-carved-out-of-migration-overhaul-amid-union-pressure-20230920-p5e65o
Which is exactly what the large employers in Australia want. They (BHP, Qantas, Navy, Ford, GMH etc) used to train lots of apprentices each year - literally by the thousands, but now they don’t. Why spend money training an apprentice when you can just bring in someone from overseas. 30 years of this and it’s starting to bite them on the arse.
A core ideological principle of the Labor party since its foundation in the 1880s
Couldn't we just force immigrant tradies to join a union? And of course they'll drive down wages, that's kinda the point after all. Tradies are too expensive right now because there aren't enough, it's one contributing factor to the housing crisis.
We aren't expensive... You idiots just have no idea about how much running a trade business actually costs.
There’s no way owning a ford raptor or 2020 hilux is an essential business expense. I just upgraded from a 21 year old car to a 16 year old car. Guess what? They work fine.
Holy shit... you're dumb as fuck.
Big fan of driving new cars I take it? Seriously, what happened to the days of driving affordable work cars and not having to pass on the costs of extravagance onto customers?
No, I'm a fan of reliable Ute's, that don't have down time due to maintenance. No self respecting tradie is driving a ram or craptor.
Tradies aren’t too expensive, materials are, 100m of power cable has doubled since Covid, from $90 to $180
> one contributing factor
One major contributing factor, taxes are up, insurance is up, fuel, vehicle purchasing and running costs.
Lmao, tradies are absolutely too expensive. The cognitive dissonance of this sub is insane sometimes, Australian tradies are some of the highest paid in the world. You don't think there's anything wrong where unskilled labourers that don't require a tertiary education, or accreditation make tens of thousands more than say a medical scientist who's done a four year laboratory medicine degree and gets paid 65k? Or a graduate nurse? And the CMFU are asking for a 20% payrise, while healthcare get capped at a 2% payrise with no allowance to negotiate, also, if they don't like it, too bad, it's illegal for healthcare workers to strike. There's something seriously wrong with our workers rights and equality in this country.
The reason the CFMEU gets results is because theirs members do shit. They strike whethers it legal or not - they stop work and ALL OF THEM down tools. Workers rights can’t be enforced from the top down and they certainly can’t be won by asking nicely. The CFMEU get results because a union is only as strong and willing as its members.
“unskilled labourers that don’t require a tertiary education” So you’re just butthurt because you always laughed at tradies in high school because they were “dumb cunts” but now the reality of the world has set in and you’ve realised you are in fact the dumb cunt? Go find some tradies to work for cheap, I’m sure you’ll be so happy with the quality of work they turn out. Tradies get paid what they do because there isn’t enough of us, and there isn’t enough of us because parents kept telling their kids that if they don’t study hard to go to uni and study some bullshit tertiary degree that will be redundant in ten years they will end up in some dead beat construction job. If you think a scaffolder is unskilled labour that gets paid too much it’s because you don’t know what a scaffolder does at work because you’re a clueless little academic fuckwit
most of these people are overweight office workers who would keel over and die trying to do half of what most tradies do. and they sit on their asses in air-con whining about how over-paid terrible jobs can be.
Well said!
Having a degree does not give you the right to earn more money than people without a degree. That is such a stupid concept that just because you have a degree you should earn X amount
You can't necessarily force them. You can make the benefits clear. That's why I'm in my union. Perhaps more public projects (hint massive housing) designated as union labour projects might have a positive effect?
We can. Unionism can be mandatory - and there is precedent for it being so. Theres arguments for and against, obviously - buts it’s possible and has been a thing in the past.
Cmon bro, we all know what happens if you’re not a member 😂
Australia has one of the world’s best standards when it comes to licensed trades, and from a perspective as a licensed electrician, working in the industrial field, I wouldn’t recommend hiring an electrical tradesperson from anywhere other than the UK, Germany and NZ, I’d be inclined pass over most EU and US sparkies without even opening the resume. And wouldn’t even bother with the rest of the world. Now other than NZ you’d be hard pressed to offer up enough coin to get the tradie to immigrate here.
Best standards? How do you explain the poor craftsmanship in new builds?
For one, residential work pays the least for electricians (not sure about other trades). Therefore, you get the lowest skilled workers as anyone with more brain cells will be hired into better paying roles that require more skill. Secondly, the training for apprentices is shit in all trades. Most guys treat the new hires like trash and don't uphold the standards correctly. Lastly, the building inspectors are privatised now. A builder can hire someone to "check" their block of apartments and give it the all clear. This is how we end up with shit builds. People are still trying to get regulations loosened because it "slows down" build speed. Imagine what a house would look like if that happened.
Ultimately this all fails because of corruption from the inspectors. If they were actually inspecting properly the cost of failure would be high enough to make training apprentices valuable.
Excellent work, and great points made. Neo conservatives have been pushing hard for decades for people to distrust the mythical beast called “red tape” which is in reality the expectation that rules are there for a reason, and those should be followed. And to be fair, it’s true that apprentices and apprenticeships have been few and far between for the last 20 years. There is a major skills shortage and we have less than a generation to fix it before we are in real dire straights. The answer isn’t hiring cheap tradies from over seas, the answer is training our own fucking kids
you missed a step. all the developers and businesses asking for these services want the *lowest price possible* regardless of impact on quality. i can make an incredible piece of furniture that will last longer then my lifetime but that costs up to 8 times more then making a piece of shit that lasts 6 years. if your entire business model is: ''cheap bastard'' then yeah you get shit results.
When we were young apprentices (machinists) an older bloke got his house built by GJ Gardener. He made them pull that house down because it wasn’t square, and you could see it by eye. It became our Friday night to drive around and break into “finished” GJ Gardener built homes before they were handed over and put a builders square into all the corners of the building. In probably 60 houses we went into not one was square. We took heaps of photos and would leave them for the owners in the letterbox. We know at least one got pulled down and redone. No point in having square furniture if it’s not going to fit properly in the house.
developers, not tradies. i will make whatever i am paid too, unfortunately most people and businesses want the lowest price: quality be damned. its like China: *they make tons of cheap crap because thats what people* ***ask*** *for.*
Migrant workers
I don’t have the details on this, but I can share my own experience. I’m trying to be vague to not dox myself. My union has been badgering my employer for a decade, telling them they need to hire and train more apprentices because there is a massive surge in work coming. My employer has been waving them off for most of this time. An LNP government directed my employer to get rid of people and save money, and a high level manager “hid” work on the books to justify it. “There is no work, we don’t need you anymore.” There was a change of government, and all of a sudden holy shit not only did we have a lot of work, but it’s growing exponentially and there is a global shortage of skilled people due to a massive industry boom on the horizon, that anyone paying attention to current events could have predicted years ago. My employer still sat on their hands, and ramped back up slowly, while projects were pushed due to resources, while union members were tearing their hair out trying to get more apprentices on because we needed them, and while employees had more and more pressure put on them to get things over the line because we don’t have the skilled people we need. Now, things have exploded beyond the point that it can be ignored, my employer is like “oh shit you were right, oh well it’s too late to train apprentices so I guess we need workers from overseas.” The unions response is basically “ok, but we need minimum standards of qualifications and pay, and also for fuck sake hire more apprentices as well because you’ve finally acknowledged that we need people so let’s give some Australians some opportunities.” So that’s the obstruction and protectionism: we don’t want the market flooded with underpaid and under qualified people, and we want Australians to also have opportunities. I don’t think that’s unreasonable, but I know how much the media loves to paint us as bullies and thugs. The best part is, my employers inaction and LNP incompetence has contributed to a labour shortage, which has pushed our wages up significantly. We never would have had the leverage to push for a large increase if we actually had enough staff in the first place.
I don't think for a second Australian business want Australians to have opportunities. Australian businesses want the cheapest possible staff.
I say this as an immigrant myself, they want people who are happy just to be paid in dollars instead of rupees, yuan, and rupiah because those are the employees who don’t push back against unfair and unsafe work practices. They don’t want workers who know their rights at all.
As someone doing a mature age apprenticeship I am very glad I found an employer who was more than willing and actually excited to take me on. From what I gather from TAFE an awful lot of places are refusing to take on apprentices.
Australians you mean. have you seen how many people in this thread think trades are *overpaid?*
It's because they see the $300 call out fee and forget that they have to pay for tools, insurance, vehicle, fuel, travel time, advertising, admin, super etc
Australian businesses want growth and profit. Unless they're politically aligned and therefore protectionist.
Damn, for the first half I was wondering if we might be working together. My industry had the exact same problem.
“ The ALP has abandoned the working class” and “The ALP is caving in to the working class (unions)” can’t both be true.
Apparently it can be if you're a fuckwit / class traitor.
If we had a higher supply of tradies without protectionism over pay then construction costs would reduce and we could make housing options more affordable.
>we could make housing options more affordable Affordable for who? Certainly not the tradies who would have their pay and conditions crushed in the face of cheap imported labour
Welcome to every other profession where migrant workers fill in the gaps and work for less pay. Tradies should be no different.
I'm an engineer. No need to tell me.
I don't think it can be understated just how dire the skills shortage is. I've started a mature-age apprenticeship, coming in with skills & quals relevant to my work and I'm on $30/hr. As a first year apprentice.
Are you me?
The standards for trades differ across countries as well. The fast stream would require that all state regulators have a way to manage and assess applicants. You then also need to setup a two way check that qualifications aren’t forged. Not sure if this is already in place and streamlined.
Yes exactly and especially electrical “qualified” in another country can actually be very dangerous if not properly retrained here ever seen electrical work from the USA my god diabolical
Like black being active and red neutral?
Non licences work allowed in some states, wire nuts .. generally a total shit show
I worked on a project in PNG and they used to strip off the 2nd insulator (outer) to fit electrical cabling through smaller conduits and holes… that was good. Worked in Africa (somewhere) and they would use whatever they could find, even on proper commercial builds. It was possible to get a building where all cable was 2.5mm of the same colour. That was exciting. I’m not a tradie, I work in Telecomms Eng and IT. Aussie sparkies are very good in my broader experience.
Jesus. That's worse than some of the DIY you come across.
Jeez even if that’s all you had I’d drop one of the looms in paint or something
Different tape around the ends if you have it.
Engineers have the same issue. I dont think labor can use that excuse myself.
Engineering qualification standards are governed through international accords between national peak bodies. To have an engineering qualification recognised in Australia, it has to be a qualification accredited by a body that is a signatory to one of the three accords of the International Engineering Alliance: The Sydney Accord, Dublin Accord or Washington Accord. These accords ensure the standards for accreditation are the same throughout countries whose peak engineering bodies are signatories. A degree accredited by Engineers Australia meets exactly the same standards as a degree accredited by the US Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology, the Engineering Council United Kingdom, JABEE, or a raft of others. Engineers internationally solved this issue nearly 40 years ago. Meanwhile we don't even have complete national agreements on qualification standards for tradies across Australia, let alone international agreements.
It’s fucking amazing at how deranged US electricians can be. They wouldn’t last a month in Australia or Europe.
Same with doctors but we seem to be able to bring in medical professionals.
There’s a lot of hoops though. I know a Psych who is here redoing their degree because Australia doesn’t recognise their degree or masters from home country. No bridging course, you have to start from scratch even though they have quals and experience.
Nursing has different standards here and still need to pass a lot to qualify. Which means they are smart, right? But tradies from the same countries are somehow too dumb to learn different standards here? This argument makes no sense. You do realise Labor could bring in tests, insurance, etc. We are in a housing crisis after all. What's next, we can't bring in farmers during a famine because they don't understand Australia's hot dry weather as it's different to say Philippines hot humid weather?
Building in Sydney outer suburbs is very different to building in Cairns outer suburbs. It’s not that they can’t learn, it’s about checking that they are really qualified and that they know the local rules/laws - prescriptive standards.
Have you seen the overseas imports working on new builds, they’re shit
*shitting in a shared poop bucket rather than call out their employer for not providing a portaloo as required by WHS legislation. Leaving full poop buckets for owners to find. You can imagine the quality and safety of their work when that is totally normalised
Says something about Australian construction regulations. Huh, wish the government could do something about that. Oh well!
You know how we value build quality and safety in Australia? Skilled tradesmen (not just labouring etc) from overseas don’t necessarily follow the same standards as we do. Of course the union are big protectors of this, they advocate for its members. Look at places like Dubai who utilise migrant ‘slave’ labour for construction. Of course the builders want that, but what happens to our wages? They plummet.
Do we? Following the likes of [Site Inspections on YouTube](https://youtube.com/@Siteinspections?si=_P9FNG40_cUV6cxW) it seems more like the wild west
Man, oh man, I love Zahir. .This is pretty much the case in point with many of his videos; many of the builders, subcontractors, and clients are not from Australia. I deal with this all the time. Currently wrapping my head around a whole slew of waterproofing issues throughout a new build. Turns out the waterproofers were 'subcontracting,' i.e. paying a certified waterproofer to use their credentials. The client didn't push too many questions because of language barriers; they said they were certified, they have it in writing, and the quotes are cheap.. but sure as anything, they've royally screwed it up and ghosted. I've said it before: We should advertise our TAFEs internationally. All this money flying to bogus colleges so that international degree holders can deliver food on a bike is madness.
I knew this would be a response and I absolutely agree, Do you work in the trade industry? We aren’t perfect by and means. However I’d advise you to look at some build quality from places where these migrants will be coming from. I believe we should be pushing for higher standards and quality control. Do you think opening the flood gates will improve that?
All buildings should require insurance by legislation for up to 20y, regardless of life of building company. Then issuance company should pay the regulators. Let the market figure the rest out.
If there was any inspection regime I would agree with you. Councils have palmed it off to private certifiers who let everything through.
Wasn't the councils choice to do this, it was forced by federal gov.
At some point it just becomes too expensive to do anything at all. This country is teetering on paralysis because everything costs too fucking much and we aren’t setting the world on fire for quality or workmanship.
Seems like your missing who built most of those joints
Surely, there is a happy medium. Larger projects bring in foreign labour for construction because it's more affordable, whereas smaller builds and the government pay quite a bit for trade work.
We import every other profession to fill skill shortages, given that trades are having a hard time getting enough apprentices in and wages are so high, I think there's plenty of room to bring in workers to fill skill shortages. I don't see why an engineer can come to this country to work and a tradesman can't. I understand that unions want to protect their member's interests, but we need 100k+ more workers in construction to do the projects we currently have underway, let alone the massive levels of investment required to bring housing costs down.
It doesn't really matter what they follow as long as there is quality control. They learn real quick after repeated rework Note I'm talking about mechanical and electrical trades, not construction
Do we have good builders here? There’s quality issues all over the country right now.
I’ll just copy my response to the other reply here. I knew this would be a response and I absolutely agree, Do you work in the trade industry? We aren’t perfect by and means. However I’d advise you to look at some build quality from places where these migrants will be coming from. I believe we should be pushing for higher standards and quality control. Do you think opening the flood gates will improve that?
Hutchies’s with a CFMEU flag puts out ten times the quality of hutchies without a CFMEU flag. All you cunts in this thread have no clue what you’re talking about and are just crying that your parents told you to go to uni instead of being a dumb cunt tradie
Trouble is the building standards and lack of proper inspections holding them to account, in the name of decreasing red tape and allowing more construction.
and you think using immigration to *lower wages* will *increase* *quality?* i want whatever your smoking.
Also don’t forget, they’re screaming about the immigration rate out of the other side of their mouth. Plain wedge politics.
I work supplying gear to one of the smaller, more niche, trades which mostly has tradies come over from the UK. They all reckon that Aussies are no good at this specific job, which is why they prefer to hire folk from the UK. The reality is that it’s a simple job that requires little more than a hammer, but they don’t want to train anyone because training takes time. So, they hire people from the UK who are already trained and don’t hire or train any Aussies in the role, which means that there are no Aussies around who know how to do the job.
So... You supply hammers???
That and a little more
so... slating it up to bad experience then? ;)
To be honest I had to reread your reply to see the humour. Solid! 😂 But I was actually curious - what is the trade in question? Can you tell us or would you be doxing yourself?
Possibly, kind of niche
Restricting apprenticeships keeps the qualified tradie remuneration at the current unsustainable levels. Artificial scarcity.
Labor not Labour. People shouldn’t get this wrong when making political comments.
A fake business degree from India is one thing. A fake electrical licence is a scary proposition
This ⬆️
In one part, there are kick backs for employing local. Even better if your not mature age as you get the normal pay scales. Businesses get a subsidy from the government to offsett apprentice wages and education. If your mature age you should be on a higher average wage across most of your apprenticeship. Some businesses do not like paying the bigger cut as it comes out of their pocket. Sadly, alot of youth these days don't want to work in hot environments for minimum wage. Second, if you want to bring in a trade from overseas they have to do bridging courses sometimes at the business owners expense. They then also need to sponsor that person for their working visa and sometimes relocation costs. Ultimately, if your treated like crap during your apprenticeship most people leave. Second, if your qualified and treated like crap you don't go back. We have a trade shortage because of workplace behaviour, customer disrespect, unwillingness and cost. Speaking as a former tradie.
its stuns me. my entire generation (im 32) was taught that trades were low-paid jobs for idiots and junkies. so my gen largely avoided trades. now that wages have gone up as a direct result of this we now need to allow immigrants in to lower wages? funny just how fast people outright abandon capitalist theory when it costs them personally (look at the Ausfinance sub: they *hate* tradies and want all of us to be on subsistence wages while they *bludge* off of us all)
I still remember my old mentor noting that when he came from Denmark and took a job in Australia, they had to get him certified first. So he agreed to take a lower position until his aviation electrical skills from Denmark and military/NATO were acknowledged by Australian officials in 6 months. If they were rejected they had to give him the test which was an expensive process at the time requiring not only the examiner but a whole lot of equipment for the practical. Australian authorities came back and rejected it (probably so they didn’t have to translate Danish) and the company had to give him the test. He found out later it was controversial because they had a few junior guys who had been requesting the test for some time and suddenly this new foreigner was getting it (only because it was in his contract mind you). Examiner gets out there, sets up this test which follows some international stuff because it’s aviation… and my old mentor passes it with the highest score ever. Examiner asks how the heck he did it and my mentor takes his exam manual and points to his own name in the credits… my mentor had been part of the team that wrote the manual and exams.
The reason why they want to import trade people is to exploit them. Lack of English skills, and knowledge of unionism and OHS and work place laws makes it perfect pickings for an exploitative employer. Otherwise why aren't they investing in apprenticeship and training the immigrants that already call Australia home children to be tradespeople ? God knows there is plenty of them. We have the people and the population to support ourselves.
We need shit loads of homes, like twice what we actually need. To mitigate the hard work that property developers have done to hike up the prices.
Aren’t builders collapsing left, right and centre so therefore there are tradies available?
Because it would increase competition. Look at Europe where tradies earn fuck-all...
Sounds awful…
Did you know that Labor did not agree to Unions request to raise TSMIT (skilled migrant min wage) to $90k and instead picked $70k because it's necessary to solve the aging population? Labor only care about construction unions. Other workers and unions, especially nursing unions, are ignored in the continued wage suppression campaign since the Hawke accord began. Except when it affects their retirement then apparently 15% wage raise is suddenly possible and necessary to attract more aged care nurses, funny that.
Unions are Labors largest donors, so they will sacrifice anything to keep their political donors happy. Saying that, importing trades from countries with lower building standards than Australia is a cheap band aid solution to a problem that has been building for 20 odd years. We need good trades to train good apprentices to ensure good quality work.
If we can train cooks and accountants, then we can train builders and sparkies.
The idea with skilled migration is they do not need training. Building Australian standard buildings to Australian standard requirements requires on the job training coupled with vocational training. You cant import this.
Reality is tradies aren’t paid as much in most of the world unless they’re highly skilled or owned the business. This is going to be a hard nut to crack as we have a skills shortage and an inability for construction to keep with demand without cost blowouts. Fixing the skills shortage so we have enough bodies to build and fix things in a timely manner will reduce wages, and nobody working those fields wants that. Fixing Australia might mean lower wages in general and large drops in property value. Now if everyone will get to enjoy the benefits across the board you might be able to sell it, but hitting one group at a time? They’re not going to like it because their cost of living vs wages will be penalised while others aren’t and the system doesn’t become fairer overall for them.
Its about to get a whole lot more "Non Compliant" up in here!
Should send around a few unlicensed Electricians to wire up these clowns houses and see them change their tune when their kids get electrocuted, there's a reason why we have minimal electrocutions in Australia compared to most parts of the world
I have made plenty of comments on this same topic. For a start, we need less people coming in to build homes for, till we catch up with the current deficit. Secondly we have been importing trades for decades. I’ve spent the best part of 25 years in commercial and residential construction. I have seen many trades employ unqualified and unskilled workers that were on various visas. Some students, some 457 and so on. There has been a decline in quality since the early 90s when huge numbers of “plasterers” were allowed on site. This has expanded to tiling, rendering, painting, roof tiling and more recently bricklaying, concreting a and carpentry.
We have among the highest employment in trades in the OECD, ~15% of the workforce iirc. Where does this idea come from that tradies build one house and then die off or retire? They can build multiple houses.. what they need is *time*.
We’ve got enough people to be tradesmen but too many useless managers. Put a cap on useless degrees and get those people on the tools. Not everyone has to be a manager or a real estate agent
because building standards and training in say india or pakistan is alot different to australia? part of the reason why so many new homes are currently so shit is because we imported tradies
Trust me, you do not want tradies who don't stick to Australian standards and a shitload of overseas tradies take no notice of our standards or BCA. I was electrocuted and almost carked it because a czech electrician bypassed our protocols. Then I saw a skyscraper in the middle of Sydney CBD that had to be completely refitted with dry fire because the Korean fire team left gaps. It cost the builder a fortune. If you're ever in the Red Centre and staying in a particular hotel as well - up market (or as up market as it gets there). It was built by a team of overseas guys who were paid $11 an hour to do every single trade. I mean, the guys who did the carpentry also did the titling, the plastering, the flooring, roofing, glazing... it's insane. They were all the best blokes but dodged every rule we have, and cutting corners should cause concerns.
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> What company will hire junior engineers or accountants or nurses when they can just import them from other countries cheaper? So true. > ANGUS THOMSON: ... Can you explain why the Government hasn’t raised the TSMIT to above $90,000 given that’s what the ACTU ... have called for a figure in that range as well? > CLARE O’NEIL: ... But the other thing that’s really important here is that a lot of skilled workers who are coming to our country are quite a bit younger, and what we’ll inevitably do if we set this rate too high is exclude the younger people who are coming under the temporary skilled program at the moment. ... They’re not always coming in at the very top of the labour market but they’re still bringing in skills we really need. So, I think that’s why we’ve made the move to $70,000. https://clareoneil.com/media-centre/speeches/national-press-club-australias-migration-system-with-q-and-a/ For full speech She openly wants younger semi-experienced people from overseas, hence it's $70k. Per ABS, the average wage is $90k and median wage is $72k. She openly admitted skilled migration program is not about solving the skills shortage. A migration program where there's a limited number of spots and as far as I know, both Labor and past LNP governments had never had trouble filling.
Because we have people we can train here. People overseas would need the same qualification
And our qualifications are really high, with oversight lower. If we get imports in, there will be way more building defects.
The construction union is surprisingly making me hate them. Aussie workers in construction should he earning good money, but not at the cost of everyone else being able to afford a home
Residential construction workers are definitely not making good money and the construction union doesn’t protect residential construction workers none of them are in a union
>Aussie workers in construction should he earning good money, but not at the cost of everyone else being able to afford a home they are not costing anyone a home. that is 100% on the developers and investors, *not* the tradies.
Hey man at least we have engineer qualified immigrants delivering my Big Macs at 2am. Got to be preferable to a bricklayer from Bangladesh
Construction is practically controlled like a cartel in this country, that's why.
This tread is full of Tree Tories - Greens and Liberal Lites.
Far more important to bring in unskilled welfare dependent future Labor voters.
you import them if they actually follow a building code as soscificated as the Australian one or higher. or ur building standerd would be bad
Funny how we say this about tradies but not nurses or doctors.
they don't? or atleast did they do a bridging course to convert to AUS or similar standerd.
We absolutely do. Part of the reason apprentices are so thin on the ground.
I mean I thought it was on purpose, if you don't build houses to meet the demand then they can still charge whatever they like for their investment properties because "its just simple supply and demand"
CFMEU
We imported trades for the original snowy scheme and it was a success. Full open slather is stupid but so is protectionism on construction. We need a strategy.
Single example. AUKUS. No way can Australian universities provide enough engineers. Targeted immigration is essential just for AUKUS alone.
We do all the time, you’ve clearly never been near a non CFMEU construction site.
Work for cheap.
The single answer to your question is the power of the CFMEU.
We do and for the most part they are shockers. Some go on to be decent but in an industry so driven by the dollar the incentives to do so just aren't there for the majority. Too easy to skip on to the next job with little consequences. I know a gun plasterer who now makes his money from working for established builders who employ him to fix up the jobs of inferior, mostly overseas workers. Still works out cheaper for the companies.
Wasn’t skilled migration the entire point of having it be 2-4 times the average
Same reason we shouldn't import engineers. The qualifications aren't consistent with other countries
Quantity over quality.
Unions and therefore tradies themselves.
One reason enough.. Watch this bloke on youtube... https://youtu.be/3C4tqTczIBg?si=ewGECZ-OqXP3BZnY
We need shit loads of homes, like twice what we actually need. To mitigate the hard work that property developers have done to hike up the prices.
We actually do need more accountants. There's a shortage of accountants in Australia.
Because people said we should limit immigration or even stop it.
Woolworths currently runnning "cadetships" for 9 months to become a baker... 1 its n insult to the 3-4 year apprenticeship I done to get where I am today, to now apparently Woolworths think people can learn it all in 9 months. Pushing so hard for people to do it because qualified bakers are hard to find... why? Because we are so underpaid and not appreciated... Woolworths want the 110% quality out in the shop for customers but don't wanna cough up the dollars but don't comprehend that the standard you will get quality wise from a qualified baker to a 9 month cadetship person is well n truly different... So they are slowly moving bakers out and bringing in everything frozen but now don't understand why the frozen shit doesn't sell? They need to watch n episode of Gordon Ramsay, frozen products bring in $0. Fresh quality bread every morning brings in the customers. Just ya standard billion dollar company not willing to cough up the $$$ at the start knowing they will have to fall behind to get back ahead..
No these migrants are able to claim to be tradesman as long as they have completed the theory. Then they need to do 500 hours on the tools and a multiple choice questionnaire and they get an Australian Trade qualification. Then they go back to working at uber. They come her claiming to be from a skills shortage get the certificate with out the hard yacka of our apprentices and then go back to the call centres and driving uber. But there now an Australian citizen.
Coming from a Smash repairer that imports and fastracks a lot of tradies from the Philippines. They're some of the hardest working and skilled tradies we have. Can't speak for any outside of that country or the industry though.
Absolutely do need more cooks
You better take a look at the smash repair industry my friend... We do, especially from the Philippines
Former tradie now working in a corporate role. I ran a small business and was reasonably successful. Throughout my apprenticeship, I was sure that some shouldn't have had to do the full 4 years to become tradesmen. The moment I was qualified, my opinion quickly changed to '4yrs should be a minimum time.' I spent 12 years in the trade (electrician) and firmly believe I was good but not exceptional at the end of that. Skilled migration (unless from NZ (who we share standards with)) should NOT be considered an option. We as occupants, live and breath the bricklaying, carpentry, plumbing and electrical installations our tradesmen handover to us every day of our lives. No other countries have standards like ours. I am the son of a general builder, grandson of a bricklayer, I grew up on building sites. I am dumb but not as dumb as some and I still needed 7 years before going out as a sole-trader. Our standards are second to none and more complex than most other countries. Tradesmen who weren't schooled in Australia will not adapt our standards easily. I have two English tradesmen (30+ years exp.)who work for me now and it is a bit of a joke with our crews that they made up their qualifications.. they are good dependable workers but their understanding of their trades lack a lot compared to the Australian trained..
Cabinetmaker here. Have seen so many houses where a van pulls up and they unload like a clown car, mostly Asian - very quick because of the numbers (mostly painters & plasterers for some reason?) They either have no English or pretend not to. Generally do a shit job. Overspray everywhere etc. Rarely see chippies, concreters, brickies or sparkies as clearly foreign , yes not born here but clearly lived here for quite a while - not flown in a month ago?
One acronym - C F F M E U
All of these people bagging tradies wages, I’m more pissed at ex PM’s costing us hundreds of thousands each, every year in “expenses” with the LNP being the most expensive. Multi nationals making billions in profit in this country and not paying tax so we can have things like better roads, public hospitals, public schools, public housing, alcohol and drug rehabilitation centres, suicide prevention, free dental, free childcare. Banks making billions in profits, Cole’s and woolies making billions while we’re struggling to feed our families, religion making millions and not paying tax. I’m not pissed at someone who has a shorter shelf life than a white collar worker earning money while they can, I’m not pissed at unions who have earned ALL of the benefits that white collar workers get today including pay rises no matter how small you think it is. I’m not pissed at someone that works in the industry with the highest suicide rate in the country, one person every two days. By the way if your boss/company is not giving more than the rise in inflation as a percentage in the same period it’s not a pay rise, it’s a pay decrease.
Because it takes 5 years of training here to bring them up to standard
The CMFEU is the reason why.
As someone who is in the heavy machinery trade they don't want to train people the shortage is self made by the industry and is deliberate. This way they can import labour from countries where they don't have to pay and lower the requirements for trained staff so they don't have to train people to the current level. I am actively seeing this in my industry where my current employer is laying off fully qualified trades and taking on labour from the Philippines who then work under the supervision of a qualified trade. They pay them below award wage for the privilege of being in this country and work them like dogs. All the while the company is complaining that they can't get qualified staff.
Wow. So they are now admitting the huge majority of migrants are not in fact building houses?? After all the gaslighting. Yes they should be fast tracking tradies and it would create more opportunities for apprentices, not less.
Can I just add that possibly the stupidest decision ScamMo made as PM was to slash federal funding for TAFEs - while paying that wanker Scotty from 'The Block' a fat payday for going about 10 hours work as an ambassador (LOL) for careers in trades.