The Rural Voice, 1978-06, Page 10Debbie Lou Creighton and Joanne Weber look at some of the paperwork that Margaret Walters has to
do to keep the Gre -Bruce Farm Labour Pool ser. ing farmers.
Finding good help on a farm is always a problem but farmers
A friend in Bruce and Grey counties have a friend in need.
The friend,yBruor Canadar friends, come in the form of beenhe staff g
t
the Grey -Bruce Farm Labour Pool that has serving
the two counties since 1975. The headquarters at Walkerton is
run by Joanne Weber along with Margaret Walters, and Debbie
Lou Creighton.
inneedThe Grey -Bruce Pool is one of 15 farm labour pools set up
across Ontario since 1974 to help with the special needs of
finding good farm labour. Joanne Weber is very reluctant to
compare the work of the pools with the previous services offered
by the Canada Manpower offices. She says that Manpower was
not set up to handle farm clients as well as her office is. A lot of
Grey -Bruce Labour Pool has good people don't understand farming she says. Many job placement
officers don't understand when you place a agricultural specialist
record solving farm labour needs . like a herdsman or farm manager on a farm, it's not for a simple
eight-hour day as in most jobs, but on a 24-hour a day basis,
because most full-time farm help live on the farm. It's a lot more
complicated than just matching the qualifications of an applicant
with those required by an employer. Finding farm labour is a job
unto itself, she feels.
Mrs. Weber's reluctance to make a comparison with
Manpower services perhaps arises out of incidents like a meeting
she attended with Manpower officials and farmers from the
Waterloo-Wellington-Dufferin area which, according to farmers
who attended, broke into a shouting match when farmers
compared the services offered by farm labour pools compared to
those offered by Manpower. Manpower officials were less than
pleased by the farmers remarks, Jim Romahn reported recently
in the Kitchener -Waterloo Record. At a recent meeting of the
Waterloo Region Federation of Agriculture farmers told of the
PG. 10. THE RURAL VOICE/JUNE 1978.