Union joins employment program

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The Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN), which represents about 8,000 nurses across the province, has become the latest group to sign a partnership agreement with the Saskatchewan Association of Health Organizations (SAHO) and the provincial government's Aboriginal Employment Development Program (AEDP).

The partnership agreement, signed on March 31, formalizes the union's commitment to work toward building a representative workforce, where Aboriginal people are employed at all levels, and at numbers in proportion to their representation in the province's overall population.

"We're going to be working with the training institutions and the Aboriginal community," explained Victoria Gubbles, Aboriginal employment development manager with SAHO. "Part of the strategy is getting that information out to the Aboriginal community, and looking at different initiatives around the training. For example, access programs. We now know Aboriginal people may not have considered nursing as a career, or the health sector, and one of the drawbacks may be the math and sciences. So we look at, okay, here's a barrier, let's address the barrier. And that's what these partnership agreements are basically about, is that we're working in partnership to address all of those barriers, to ensure that we can train and recruit Aboriginal nurses," she said.

"The other area is around preparing the workplace, around education. We find that is another barrier for Aboriginal people. The myths and misconceptions that surround Aboriginal people, say, as good employees, can prove to be a barrier. What we say is when we provide education and prepare the workplace to support Aboriginal nurses, that's our retention strategy," Gubbels explained.

"Five years ago, the unions and employers, we were just beginning. What I'm excited about as an Aboriginal person involved in this program is that we're finally dealing with the real systemic barriers that are in place. We're looking at the whole sector and we're asking people to partner with us."