FAS grants for female apprentices, sexist?


Your right and wrong,
When I changed employer in my 3rd year he had to sign a release form, I called it a change of ownership form. I've heard of some lads refusing to release apprentices without a lot of hassle.
Purple hits the nail on the head when he says that apprentices are an investment and returns are slow to see.

Don't forget present day employers went through the same thing as their apprentices, and those apprentices in the future will do the same to their employees, the cycle will go on.
When I started I earned £55 pound a week and took loads of crap in the bargain. The dole at the time was £75. 12 years later I run my own business, hire people and have a good standard of living.
 

If you can live on poor money for 3 to 4 years. Some of the best trades people I know came in late but are much faster to pick it up. The faster you pick up a trade, the faster you make money from nixers etc.

As an apprentice I earned more money on a saturday doing a nixer than I would working all week. A trade is for life, well worth doing if you can.
 
Many top tradesmen don't have other degrees but something much more valuable. years of experiance.
 

So just because it happened to you means that's it's OK to then pay someone peanuts in years to come.

I know of some young fellas getting less than they would on the dole... and all they do all day is take crap from their employers. I hate the way FAS turn a blind eye to employers paying the apprentice below the agreed industry standard rates. Surely someone has to speak up for the participants of these apprenticeship programme and thrash out a better deal for them.
 

My wife is a doctor. She worked in hospitals during her training and didn't get paid anything. The same goes for solicitors. Are they all being exploited as well?
I'm afraid you really should not make such generalisations when it is clear that you don't know what you are talking about.
 


When people go for a degree from a college they get no money for doing it.

When people go to a firm for a trade they get paid and learn.
 
When people train to be doctors solicitors etc they are learning all the time. I'm not saying that all employers of apprentices are the same but the norm in my area is that the lesser experienced apprentices are given the jack hammer and told to mix concrete and never get to look at a hot press for nearly a year.

What are they learning about plumbing in that instance? Does trainee solicitors be taught how to do filing when they are university? For me if a tradesman needs a labourer.... then pay labourers wages not employ an apprentice on the promise of leanring the trade then hand him a jack hammer, cement mixer or a brush.
 

Yes but you forget that you can't hand an apprentice a tool and expect him (or her) to know what to do with it and how to use it.

An apprenticeship is all about fine tuning the use of hands and you can't learn that from a book.
 
weejasy, are you an apprentice plumber?
I have lads working for me and there are days when I have to pick up a kango, why? because it's all part of the job. Less experianced apprentices have to do the donkey work cos lets face it thats all they can do. Trades are learnt over time everybody starts at the bottom. A good employer will have their staff working at the job that suits their skills at that particular moment.
It sounds like you got a rough boss or the trade doesn't suit you. Which ever way it is if you go on and qualify there will always be donkey work to be done. Thats the nature of the game.
 

I on occasion have people working for me and I still do sweeping when it is necessary or cleaning or what ever needs doing as Davey says its the nature of the game.

We do what we have to.
 
I appreciate that hard labour is a part of all trades... but as I said before there are employers who exploit the low paid. I feel more should be done by FAS to ensure that these employers are excluded from the programme.
 
weejasy77 said:
I appreciate that hard labour is a part of all trades... but as I said before there are employers who exploit the low paid. I feel more should be done by FAS to ensure that these employers are excluded from the programme.
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I thought FAS was about the training of people, not what money they get.
I'd have thought that would be a different dept.
Employment maybe.
 
weejasy77 said:
I appreciate that hard labour is a part of all trades... but as I said before there are employers who exploit the low paid. I feel more should be done by FAS to ensure that these employers are excluded from the programme.
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I see where you are coming from. the first three years of my app I worked for a gentleman and great tradesman, when I had a question he would take time to answer it. Even to this day I will ring him if I need advice. Best thing is because I have extra qualifications he some times rings me for advice, which gives me a great buzz.
I served my last year with a complete dick of a man. wouldn't say good morning and would send me to a job and assume I would complete it without bother. paid me app rates but expected qualified quality and speed. If I had started with him I wouldn't be a tradesman today. But if I'm honest he made me become a better tradesman because I had to be.
Are you an apprentice or were you one?
 

I packed in my office job last year to learn myself a trade... I started out with an absolute cowboy of a plumber. He was never on time for work, expected the apprentices to work late to make up for his poor time keeping, would head off in the van with everyones lunch and not land back for hours leaving every1 without any tea/lunch. He would lie constantly about everything (dont know why but this bothered me) and if any of the apprentices asked how something worked his response would have been you'll learn that when your away with FAS I havent got time here to baby sit you. He always took short cuts and if he was ever found out he would humiliate one of the young fellas by shouting the head off them in front of the customers, even though they had nothing to do with the error.

I could write a book on him... but anyways I packed it in with him and am now currently seeking another employer. When I approached FAS to explain that I didnt think he should be considered as a suitable person to be mentoring young people they stated they understood my concerns but werent willing to do anything about it.
 
There is a concept of positive action in equality which supports actions necessary to create a level playing fields, e.g.

[broken link removed]

I guess that's what going on here, though I'm not sure that grants to businesses are the most effective approach here. I'd have thought that education and marketing targetted at girls of school-leaving age would be more effective.
 
Maybe if you looked at the FAS policies?


http://www.fas.ie/en/Equality/default.htm

Its just life you'll get people who aren't good at what they do. Be that a boss, a plumber or some desk jockey in a faceless organisation etc. The trick is to realise it, and learn how to deal with them. Find who's responsible, send them a letter, get your policitican on it etc. But don't let it drag you down. Move past it.
 
The thing for me is where do you draw the line at what discrimination is

too fat
too thin
too tall
too short
where you come from
what religion you are
what your name is
how you speak
too ugly
too good-looking (that's my one)
too old
too young
bald
too much hair
face hair
bad dresser
bad breath

I just think it's unfair that there should be grants for employers to get female apprentices, no such grant applies for men to be secretaries or nurses.
 
S.L.F said:
I just think it's unfair that there should be grants for employers to get female apprentices, no such grant applies for men to be secretaries or nurses.
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Though I wouldnt be surprised to see something introduced for primary teaching
http://www.education.ie/home/home.jsp?pcategory=10815&ecategory=32871&language=EN

People gaining work experience will always have to do grunt work.. being part of the workforce and learning the softer skills (time management/team work/etc) is a part of it too. When I trained for my profession we all shared stories of doing monotonous work such as data entry and filing.. but we were just glad to have any wages at all after 3 years in college
 
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