A Look Ahead In Floriculture Education
Subject:
Illinois State Florists' Association
Abstract:
IF WE ARE to survive and succeed as an industry, we must invest more heavily in people—provide more preservice and in-service training programs for all segments of floriculture. The impact of technological change is being felt in our industry today as it is in most others. Last year's amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act have ex tended minimum wage regulation to many more of our workers for the first time. This new Act has reduced the number of people engaged in farm work and service trades by a sizeable figure. It has replaced the very people it set out to assist: the unskilled, the elderly, the women and children. Florists are in a bind with higher labor costs and inability to adapt reaidily to the use of automation and mechanization. Our labor force must come from selected high school graduates, vocational schools, distributive education students, land grant colleges and universities, community colleges, concentrated design schools, and on-the-job training courses under the Manpower Development and Training Act. Education, pre-service and in-service, is certainly a key to our industry's economic future.
Keywords: SAF Education Committee Shortage of floricultural labor Manpower Needs Colleges And Universities Community Colleges
Libraries: Floriculture