In a time when we hear so much doom and gloom, particularly in the transport industry, I’d like to throw a bit of positivity out there.
Over the last 22 years, I have split my time between driving trucks and turning spanners on them. As of March this year I was given the great opportunity to study for and gain my Certificate 4 in Training and Assessing, whilst accepting full-time employment as a teacher in the VET (Vocational Education and Training) system. I am employed to pass on my experience to up-and-coming Apprentice Mechanics throughout their apprenticeships.
This has exposed me to the people that will be maintaining our Heavy Vehicles in the future.
Despite the bad wrap our younger generation are often given, generally I am personally impressed with the ones I work with, in particular the wide demographic that make up my classes. Might I say that they respond well to being treated with respect and give it back in return. Perhaps one gets back what they put in!
When I started my apprenticeship in 1989 the class I trained with were all 16–19-year old, male, Caucasian Australian citizens that were born and raised nearby. Like me, they had left school as soon as they could, and we were like peas in a pod.
Step forward 35 years and it is a whole different scene, and I believe our industry is a better place for it.
I have several students in their 30’s, with wives/husbands, kids and mortgages. They bring to the class maturity and some world experiences. I have one young man who has immigrated to Australia and is paying his own way, while my class today had three young ladies in it.
These apprentices, when asked why they chose to get a trade, generally give the answer that they want to make a better future for themselves. Some cite travel as a reason, and of course we still have the younger group we have always had, that got out of school as soon as possible and took a trade.
What I am observing, is that there has been a shift over time in attitude, and self-assessment from someone being ‘Just a Mechanic’, to ‘I’m a tradesperson, and I am being paid well for my skills, and those skills can take me around the world.’ They are becoming proud — this is a great thing.
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You see the heavy vehicle repair industry has recognised demand for tradespeople and has taken down the barriers that previously eliminated so many great people, based simply on age, gender and race among other poor reasons for culling potential applicants.
We now encourage people of all walks of life to come into this skilled trade and carve out a rewarding career. Perhaps it is time the freight and logistics side of our industry did the same.
When a first-year apprentice turns up for training, I am often taken aback a little as to how much they do not (yet) know. It is easy for me to look at a task I have been doing for years, and that I can practically do with my eyes closed and wrongly expect the inexperienced person I am teaching to have the same level of skill. I am starting to settle into a place where I am adjusting my expectations, raising my teaching skills, and making what I hope is a real change in someone’s life.
I expect all but the most cynical of readers will be following along with this and agreeing we need to nurture our up-and-coming tradespeople, both young and mature, male and female, Australian-born and immigrants.
So why is it we have such a negative view of the immigrants and inexperienced that have come to join our industry as drivers, particularly those who were not born in Australia?
To me, when I see someone has worked hard enough in a country where getting ahead is so difficult, to afford to come to Australia and continue to work hard in a very unforgiving industry, they have earned and deserve respect. They also deserve proper training just as we give to our up-and-coming tradespeople.
If you are any sort of fair dinkum person and were living in a country where you thought a better life for you and your family was available in another country, would you not take the leap and do what is best for yourself and your family? So why do so many knock others for doing so?
I think as a general rule we have got it wrong about the immigrants that have moved to Australia to work in our industry. We collectively complain about the low standard of skills, and to be honest that is possibly an accurate assessment. There are lots of drivers entering/entered our industry without the skills needed to do the job. But that is ‘the system’s fault, not theirs.
If you sit around a group of ‘old school’ operators or listen to some of the podcasts reminiscing of times gone by, and how the local Sarge, after observing the interviewee drive unlicensed for some time, told them to ‘Get down to the station so we can give you a bloody license’, therefore admitting they too ‘shortcut’ the system – I admit I did too — is it not a bit hypocritical to knock someone doing the same thing now?
How many ‘old school’ drivers got their MC licence simply by having a letter from their employee back in the day when that was all that was required? But that’s OK, they were born in Australia, and it was ‘The good old days.’
Is it the same as defending the cult culture of drink driving ‘in the old days’ before RBT and common sense made it a socially unacceptable activity?
Let us stop the pointless bickering about the new immigrants joining our industry at a time when we are desperate for workers and should welcome the help.
For all you ‘old school’ readers out there, having a nervous tick and bulging veins in your temple after reading this, look in the mirror, look at the person in the reflection, and ask yourself ‘was I born with the skills to operate in this industry, or was I tutored by someone with the experience I so much wanted?’
Perhaps this bad rap on new drivers in our industry is both our fault and only repairable by the ‘old school’ operators out there.
Next time you are at a roadhouse or DC and someone who looks to be a bit ‘Green’ is there also, strike up a conversation, ask them where they are from, how they are going, and if there is something you can show them.
Perhaps educate them on something you are skilled and experienced at to help lift them to the standards the ‘old school’ operators demand of anyone who holds a licence to drive a Heavy Vehicle.
In the meantime, your National Road Freighters Association board members will continue to fight for a better industry for ALL who wish to be a part of it.
Safe trucking everyone, Gordo.
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