The announcement by College of New Caledonia to hire 50 aboriginal individuals over the next five years wasn't something that happened overnight or without a lot of negotiating, said the president of the Faculty Association.
Jan Mastromatteo said CNC administration, Faculty Association and CUPE, which represents operational workers started working on this in 2008 and the application to the BC Human Rights Tribunal to implement the aboriginal positions was made by CNC in September.
CNC requested 70 positions - reduced to the 50 recently announced - that could be hired for all areas of the college and not restricted to First Nations initiatives, but both the faculty and the CUPE union would not agree to it.
The positions were eventually included in the collective agreements, "but our concerns were that administration wanted the aboriginal positions to be outside the collective agreement," said Mastromatteo. That would have played havoc with seniority rights and eliminated the right to bump aboriginal positions by employees who were laid off.
"Both unions did a lot of legal work because we needed to fight the collective agreement part of it, but at the same time we have always supported employment equity.
"We didn't want to block the First Nations positions, so we suggested a mediation out of which came this final agreement signed by administration, faculty and CUPE.
"This was also an opportunity for administration to take advantage of governments funds targeted for First Nations initiatives, and you can't blame them for that.
"But we'll be interested to see if the money continues to flow in future budgets," Mastromatteo said.
The 50 positions approved by BCHRT must involve aboriginal students in regards to instruction, services or administration, and positions can also be filled by non-aboriginal people if there's no First Nations people available with the right qualifications, she said.
People hired to instruct First Nations courses must have all the qualifications called for and will be paid according to qualifications and years of experience like all faculty.
A First Nations person applying to teach aboriginal history must have the degree required, said Mastromatteo.
Elders and other aboriginal people who come to share knowledge such as traditional medicine or canoe building, beading and other cultural subjects are called guest instructors invited by a faculty member.
"They are usually volunteers or may receive a stipend or gift for their work."
Any way, decisions around implementing programs, hiring and other aspects are made jointly by a committee made up of administration, faculty and CUPE members.
CNC already has designated 32 of the positions -- 25 in operational staff, six as faculty and one in administration, so there are 18 more positions available.
--btrick@pgcitzen.ca
