There were also basic safety issues for ECs in rural and northern Manitoba. Many of the participants regularly travel into very remote regions. Participant C explained, “You are on your own in a car.… We don’t have satellite phones.” Another safety issue raised was the politics of the workplace and the personal stress that inhibits a safe work environment. “The politics on First Nations is really toxic,” according to Participant F. Participant B agreed with the stress of the job and, when talking about the workplace, stated, “It’s very difficult to make yourself go there to work sometimes.” Participant C talked about all the necessary job structures being available, but a lack of teamwork prevailed in the office: “There is dynamics in every office.… I just don’t think we work well together as a team.”

Recruitment and Selection Processes

Moving on the workplace conditions chart to the second level (see Table 1), we can see that the EC also suffers from poor orientation processes and high turnover of workers. Participant A described the first days on the job, “I was left there to figure out everything on my own.” Participant E agreed, “I wasn’t equipped for the job.” Again the experiences were different for the provincial employees, as Participant C offered, “They didn’t link things … read the manual, here’s our training stuff … go with so and so or out into the community and learn where you’re going.” The participants’ stories told of varying degrees of educational background from provincial degrees and teaching certificates to a grade-10 level high school completion. The government employees are members of a labour union; none of the First Nations employees work in unionized environments.