Raglan mine workforce short on Inuit

One out of every five workers at Nunavik’s Raglan mine should be an Inuk.

But 10 years after work on the nickel and copper mine first started, and millions of dollars in training money later, only 16 per cent of the 450 or so workers, that is, about 72, are Inuit — and that’s a lower level than the original 20 per cent target for Inuit employment.

Last December, there were 83 employees out of a total of 451 or 18 per cent of the total workforce.

Many Inuit now at the mine are also there as trainees, not as permanent employees.

The Raglan Agreement, a benefits agreement signed between Nunavik and Falconbridge Ltd. in 1995, included a complex payoff scheme worth at least $75 million to Nunavimmiut over the mine’s 20 year lifetime, but jobs were always considered to be the nickel mine’s real bonus for the region.

Although the numbers aren’t there yet, the good news, according to Annie Kenuayuak, a former social worker from Salluit who is the mine’s Inuit employment officer, is that there’s much less on-site tension that often discouraged Inuit from working at the mine.

When Kenuayuak arrived at the mine three years ago, she still saw signs of unease, but since then, she said there’s been noticeable changes in relations among workers.

“There were a lot of conflicts, but these have quieted down. More information is given out and there’s more communication,” Kenuayuak said in a telephone interview from the Katinniq mine site, located mid-way between Salluit and Kangiqsujuaq. “People make friends, it’s great. I think they are pretty satisfied with the situation although there is always room for improvement.”

Shaky relations between the mainly francophone workforce and Inuit existed even when the mine officially opened in July, 1998, and hit a low in 2001 when a male Inuk employee lodged an official complaint over unwanted sexual advances from a male co-worker.

A 2002 audit of training programs for Inuit at the Raglan mine recommended the creation of an impartial “ombudsperson” position to resolve conflicts, “especially conflicts on intercultural matters.”

The report also suggested Inuit culture courses for all southern employees and basic Inuttitut and French courses for employees.

Not every suggestion in this audit has been implemented, but cross-cultural awareness sessions are now held three times a year and Kenuayuak said these have created more mutual understanding.

Adamie T. Alaku, a young, trilingual man from Salluit, teaches these courses in French.

Communication is still sometimes a problem, Kenuayuak admits, but many of younger Inuit workers now arrive at the mine with a good knowledge of French.

The mine’s name also changed last January from Société minière Raglan du Québec or SMRQ to a more bilingual name, Falconbridge Ltd./ltée., Raglan.

But language hasn’t been the only barrier for Inuit willing to work at the mine.

Starting in 1995, the Kativik Regional Government poured millions of dollars into training courses to prepare local residents for jobs unofficially earmarked for Inuit.

Three years later, the then-SMRQ, the provincial manpower department, Emploi-Québec and the KRG received $4 million for a five-year training program. The training program was to boost the percentage of skilled Inuit employees at the mine to 20 per cent and put an end to the mine’s complaints that Inuit trained off-site generally needed retraining before they could work at the mine.

An on-site course to train mill operators later flopped. Only one out of seven participants completed a concentrator operator program that cost $348,860.

The training programs that had the most success were for the lower-end positions of kitchen helpers, janitors or janitor apprentices.

But some of this original training money is now paying for a promising new project called the “Stope School Project.”

Under this program, nine Inuit trainees have their own underground section to mine and are learning underground mining techniques on-the-job as well as in the classroom.

Kenuayuak says most Inuit want to be heavy equipment operators, but there are no openings because “Inuit that have these jobs keep them.”

A few years ago, membership in Quebec’s Steelworkers Union, Le syndicat des métallos, gave the mine’s southern employees job security.

Job-seeking Nunavimmiut who have paper qualifications, but no experience, are now at a disadvantage when it comes to applying for openings at the mine, particularly in a section with little turnover or growth.

But with new opportunities opening up this fall, Kenoujuak hopes to see more Inuit at the mine, and although priority is still given to the residents of the two communities closest to the mine, she encourages Inuit from around Nunavik to apply for openings and training courses through their local employment officers.