KAMLOOPS — With a career spanning more than 40 years, Vince Ready has had little time to pursue post-secondary education.
Today, June 9, the man responsible for mediating thousands of labour disputes was given an honorary degree from Thompson Rivers University.
With a smile on his face, and in front of members of the 2016 graduating class, Ready accepted an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Thompson Rivers University.
“It’s an honour, it’s a real honour.” Ready said. “It’s not something that you expect in life. I’ve worked fairly hard in my profession but I never expected to be honoured or bestowed with a degree like this.”
The long-time mediator has been the man behind the arbitration of more than 7,000 labour disputes across Canada.
TRU President and Vice-Chancellor, Alan Shaver said it was because of Ready’s successful career that he was recognized in this way.
“He’s been wonderful in resolving dificult collective bargaining situations,” Shaver said. “He’s got a knack that he’s able to solve problems, bring people together, and resolve this kind of conflict and come up with a settlement, an agreement.”
Shaver said members of the TRU Community nominate potential honorary degree recipients, those nominations must then be examined by a number of committees and approved by both the senate and the board.
“It’s just recognition of outstanding people that we think have done something really important (for) society,” Shaver said, “so we recognize them with this honorary degree. And it gives them a chance to share their experience with the new graduates.”
Some of Ready’s most notable career moments in B.C. include the mediation of a pulp and paper mill strike in 1998, ending the dispute between bus drivers and B.C. Transit in 2001, and reaching a deal in the B.C. teacher’s strike in 2014.
Through all of this, Ready has learned a few lessons, which he shared with the graduating class.
“There’s nothing wrong with conflict, we learn from it … we start in the school grounds, we have it there, we have it in our parliaments, we have it in all our legislatures, and we have it in society,” Ready said in his speech.
“We’ve got to be more tolerant and we’ve got to listen to people that have different views than we have, and respect them and learn from them.”
While Ready lives and works in the Lower Mainland, he has some ties to Kamloops.
“I’ve got deep roots in the Kamloops area,” Ready said. “I’ve done a lot of work up here in the mining, and the forest, and the public sector. I lived here for several years in the 70s.”
Ready had one last piece of advice for the new graduates, and that was “go and find a good job.”
