Aboriginal grads get ready to enter millwright trade
- Fraser Needham | October 27, 2015
Twelve Aboriginal people from across Saskatchewan are well on their way to becoming fully certified millwrights.
The 12 graduated from an 8-week program that enables them to work as a millwright apprentice on October 23.
The training program is a partnership between the Saskatchewan Building Trades Council, Prairie Arctic Trades Training Centre, Ministry of Economy, AECON, Saskatoon Tribal Council, George Gordon First Nation and Gabriel Dumont Institute.
It its modern usage, a millwright is a skilled tradesperson that assembles complex machinery within industrial settings.
In this province, millwrights are employed in a number of industries including mining.
Don Ross is AECON’s consultant for Aboriginal development.
He says it takes four years of on the job training and education to become a fully certified millwright.
Once a millwright has all of their papers and receives a red seal, they can earn up to $49 per hour and a first year apprentice earns about $25 per hour, Ross says.
He says the training program gives the students a good introduction to the millwright trade and what they can expect on the job.
It is also fully sponsored to make it accessible to everyone and the focus is on graduating all students who enroll.
“Twelve enrolled and 12 graduated,” Ross says. “The success rate in this program is 100 per cent and was 90 per cent on the other ones we were involved in. For me, it’s very important with the partnerships we have where students are coming in and they are graduating. And so they’re not 50 per cent drop out rate, we don’t have a 50 per cent drop out rate. That’s very important to the communities that they’re coming from and also for us that when they get on the job site that they are going to continue and have a career as a journeyman millwright.”
Overall, Ross says working as a millwright is a challenging, rewarding and well paying career.
The trade offers many opportunities in Saskatchewan but it is just a matter of connecting Aboriginal people to these opportunities.
“I think the problem is the industry doesn’t know how to reach out to First Nations and Métis communities,” he says. “I have over 250 resumes sitting on my desk from First Nations and Métis people throughout Saskatchewan that they’re ready to go work at different trades. Right now at AECON, we have over 25 apprentices in six or seven different trades – from electricians all the way down to labourers. In the First Nations and Métis communities, they don’t know anything about the 13 different building trades. They don’t know how to join a labourers’ union. I didn’t even know there was a labourers’ union until I joined AECON. There’s a lot of communications that need to happen between the communities and the industry. I think that’s what’s lacking.”
John Dieter of Regina is one of the new graduates.
He says he enjoyed the two-month millwright training course and is now looking forward to starting his career.
“We have a job placement, we hope, through AECON at the K + S (Potash) site out in Bethune,” Dieter says. “So we’re hoping at least 80 per cent of us can get out there as soon as possible and start our careers.”
The graduation ceremony was held at AECON’s Saskatoon offices.