Australian unions applaud Berlin’s trainee move

10 May 2004

SYDNEY – Australia’s biggest construction union called Monday on the government to follow Germany’s lead and force businesses to taken on apprentices.

CFMEU secretary John Sutton praised German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder’s government for its policy of fining firms that fail to employ apprentices and rewarding those who do out of the fines collected.

“If such a strategy is good for Germany, it would be good for Australia as well,” Sutton said in a statement.

“Companies which fail to take on the requisite number of apprentices should be barred from tendering on government projects while those who train apprentices fully should be rewarded with preferred tenderer status,” the statement said.

 DPA

Subject: German news