Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Nov 24/00) - "Have you completed the report on barriers to women in the workplace?"
The pointed question was put to Ekati diamond mine president Jim Excell during a break in a presentation on how well Canada's first diamond mine abided by the terms of its socio-economic and environmental agreements.
Excell said he did not know the answer to the question, but that if he had to guess the answer would be no.
The woman noted the report was to be completed last year and asked Excell when his company might be finishing it. The president said he would find out. It was an exchange that exemplified how much more is expected of mining companies doing business in the North compared to years past.
Workers at Ekati are offered a host of training and educational opportunities, among them: seminars on stress management, anger management, wills and estate planning as well as training modules aimed at promoting workers from within the company.
The mine, 280 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife, will be the first in North America to offer a workplace literacy program. Workers who want it will be schooled during work hours, Excel said.
The program is aimed at developing literacy and numeracy skills.
So far Ekati's owner BHP, by its count, has managed to meet or exceed the minimum targets filling 62 per cent of its jobs with Northerners and half of those with aboriginal Northerners.
But most aboriginal workers are filling entry level jobs. In 1999 aboriginals filled 60 per cent of unskilled positions and just four per cent of professional positions.
Meeting the targets, Excell said, has required that BHP lower its minimum Grade 12 education requirement.
"You don't have to have any grade," he explained responding to a question from the audience last week. "You have to have the ability to learn and a willingness to learn." That will eventually change at the request of the five communities from which most of the aboriginal workers come from.
"They don't want lower standards to be acceptable forever," Excell said.
"They want to encourage their children to stay in school."
