When most of us think of the word 'education', we think high school diploma, college certificates and university degrees. With the introduction of the internet, our approach to a meaningful education may be about to morph into one that does not require diplomas and degrees.
So what does education have to do with the auto industry. I recently recalled a conversation with my brother-in-law Bill back in the fall of 1999. Bill was a 25 year employee of General Motors in St Catharines, Ontario. At the time, GM was one of the largest employers in the Niagara Region with a few thousand employees. The CAW in Canada and the UAW in the USA were threatening rolling strikes against the 'Big Three', GM, Ford and Chrysler. The unions were demanding an increase of $1 per hour in wages for each of the next three years. The unions and the big three had negotiated every 3 years for the previous 20 years as far as I can recall and each time, the wages went up, must faster than the rest of the region.
I told Bill that I believed GM would eventually crash under the weight of high wages and benefits along with bloating retiree pension payouts. This would then be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices for cars and trucks. This sort of bargaining between the unions and the big three, in just ten years would see auto workers earning a disproportionately higher wage for basic manufacturing jobs.
Many of the workers did not have a grade 12 diploma. It was a different time, when the employer paid for a worker's training to learn a new skill and I also pointed this fact out to Bill. I said to him that I predicted that GM would be bankrupt in ten years and that it will be the result of workers demanding more and more.
The conversation on the subject was very short. I don't think it lasted for more than 10 minutes but it was Bill's reply that so startled me that I remember it to this day. It was short and simple... "We will never, ever take a pay cut".
The auto workers refused to believe or see that a crash was coming. 10 years later, GM filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and the stock went to zero and became part of the Financial Crisis and needed billions in bailouts. A lot of people lost their jobs during the crisis, many in their 50's and without any diploma or degree.
Hence how my conversation with Bill also got me thinking about education. Most of us want a good education so we can find really good jobs right?
Well, before the 1980's, you could find an excellent job and your employer would pay you great wages and benefits with a pension to boot and even pay for all your training aka education.
These days, our poor kids are getting tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt trying to 'earn' an education. That in itself puts a huge strain on the future economy after they graduate. They won't have money to spend on big ticket items like their parents and grandparents had.
This generation will learn a big lesson, like "Wow, I could have just Googled it all". That's right. Everything you ever wanted to know is on the internet. I know it's a big thing to say but I think it's true. We can educate ourselves now with the click of a mouse. Why go to college? (and pay for parking)
Employees of the past expected their employers to pay for their education. Then, the big corporate guns turned the tables and forced future employees to get expensive diplomas and degrees. I'm a GenEx'er and can vouch for the fact that I had to get a college diploma in order to find a decent paying job that rivaled GM wages and it took 3 years to get it too.
Not to mention the CEOs who now regularly make tens of millions of dollars for offering no productivity whatsoever at the expense of indebted workers... most of whom now have college or university educations.
See where this is all heading?
I see a revolution coming in the way we think about education and how we educate ourselves. That's right, educate ourselves. Never before have we had so much information available at our fingertips. Soon, when someone goes for a job interview and is asked "what is your educational background", the answer might be "I taught myself everything I need to know that will get me a job here" and this answer along with a simple aptitude test will be sufficient.
Yes, times they are-a-changin'.