Back in 1291 the Venetians used their secret police to promote the economy. They forced all the Venetian glassmakers to move to the nearby island city of Murano. It may have been the fire warden who came up with the idea, because the glassmakers’ foundries kept setting Venetian neighbourhoods on fires, but by creating an extraordinary cluster of glassblowing talent they made Venice the leading center for glass production and innovation in Europe.
Murano’s glassmakers got rich, and although they were commoners, they were granted the right to wear swords and their daughters were allowed to marry into Venice’s blue-blooded families. There was a catch, however. If a glassmaker tried to move his business to another city, the Venetian secret police were to track him down and cut his hands off.
And if he left his family behind, the family members could be fined, imprisoned, or even sent to the galleys. The glassblowers guild helped reportedly hired assassins to deal with members who tried to leave with their trade secrets. These may not be the kind of policy we want the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines to adopt but they helped keep Venice at the top of the glass industry for centuries.
Venice offers three key lessons about building up the people resources of the region: Cluster talent, Reward talent, and Hold onto talent. It is a formula that worked in Venice and it can work here.
Clustering – for instance by moving all of the forestry- and mining-related research and training programs to Northern Ontario – is a first step in northern development. We need a world-class mass of forestry and mining talent in the North. That mass would attract investors and entrepreneurs, producing more jobs and brining in more talent.
A little persistence on the part of northern business people will make these clusters happen. All we need to do is take every chance we get to ask provincial politicians what they have done this week to build the northern forestry and mining clusters. Within six months our MLAs will begin to take the issue seriously. “Ask and ye shall receive,” as the Book of Matthew says.
Attracting and holding talent is harder. Since we can’t send out the secret police, we will have to produce the skilled labour we need. Economic development for Northern Ontario ultimately depends on our capacity to develop our own people.
One problem is that businesses are not eager to train new employees. If a company invests time and money in training, the chances are another company will come along and better pay, more benefits and more security. When there is a shortage of skilled workers investing in training is even riskier because labour piracy is more intense.
Companies are caught in a classic “Prisoner’s Dilemma” – it is cheaper and safer to hire workers that someone else has trained, but if everybody raids his neighbour, everyone suffers from a shortage of trained workers. Economically rational business people actually undermine economic growth in the north.
The problem for firms is like the problem for the North as a whole – how do you hold onto skilled labour? In 1291 the Venetians solved the problem with their secret police. That is not an option today. More recently employers solved the problem by charging apprentices for their early training and forcing them to work for almost nothing for several years. Workers have more options now and the apprenticeship system has broken down.
Businesses have come to rely on public education for training. Unfortunately the public system no longer provides the kind of training many northern employers need. Schools focus on personal development and other wonderful goals, and the result is that they make it even easier for workers to move between jobs and between regions. Even the schools now undermine the Northern economy.
Is there a way out of the trap? There is one more clue in the story of the Venetian glassmakers. It wasn’t really the secret police that kept glassmakers in Venice. It was the right to wearing a sword and the chance to marry into a noble family. By giving glassmakers real social status, upward mobility, and quality of life, Venice made them want to stay in the city.
Making sure that northern communities are good places to live and wonderful places to raise children and ensuring that we have the best schools and the best training programs available may be the real key to attracting and holding the skills we need for economic development.
