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Women in the Trades: What’s Keeping Them Away?
by Joanna Kadish

Sweeping her strong, knotted hands in front of her, Margaret Schab explained what the past 11 years has been like for an ex-accountant turned electrician. In particular, she’s enjoyed the two and a half years with the Port of Seattle where she’s had to work on a number of diverse tasks providing power to fish processors and marinas.

“My satisfaction is a lot higher now,” says Schab. “What I do is important, keeping power going so a lot of people can do their jobs. On top of that, I’m getting paid well. It’s pretty incredible, actually.”

The Port of Seattle was one of 65 exhibitors at the 26th annual Women in Trades Fair April 15 at the Seattle Center. Each year, the fair has drawn more exhibitors, although industry records show that the number of women going into the construction trades has been steadily declining – despite efforts of advocacy groups like Women in Trades. The organization was formed in 1978 by a handful of female construction workers on the heels of a lawsuit brought by the National Women’s Law Center (NWLC) against the Department of Labor, which forced the government to reevaluate its restrictive hiring policies regarding women.

At first glance, that victory may appear hollow, given the fact that females have stormed some of the most stubborn male bastions – it’s not so rare anymore to hear of a woman in the upper echelons of management – but in construction, women continue to be an anomaly: try finding a woman building contractor, for example.

At the fair, probably three-fourths of the exhibitors were from local and state agencies, which today lead efforts to bring women into the trades. Yet even their considerable muscle hasn’t budged the numbers from the two to three percent that has characterized female involvement since World War II, when women took over entire factories. Nearly a century later, when roughly half the workforce is female, three-fourths of us continue to toil at minimum-wage clerical, service and retail jobs.

Given the potential earnings, it’s puzzling why more women do not choose a vocation like plumbing, for instance. A second-year apprentice plumber pulls down $14.88 an hour. At the journey level, her earnings will be double that rate. Similarly, sprinkler fitter apprentices start at $14.12 the first year, and by journey level, can earn $35.29 an hour. Not only do union members have a pension plan, but also the average salary of a unionized worker is $60,590 a year or $29.13 an hour – and that’s not taking into account full medical and dental benefits. Outside electrical line workers start at $21.15 an hour and after three and a half years or 7,000 hours, move to journeyman status with an earnings increase to $35.25 an hour. Journey level plasterers with four years experience can earn $50,000 or $28.63 an hour. Ironworker apprentices start at $19.38 an hour and receive benefits and another $10 an hour at journey level.

The National Women’s Law Center’s success lead to an unprecedented amount of federal dollars being disbursed during the 1980s to pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship programs geared specifically to women. This created a small spike in enrollment that lasted for a couple of years before the numbers began sliding again.

Nettie Dokes, apprenticeship manager at Seattle City Light and a board member of Women in Trades, wonders if the NWLC’s efforts have come to nothing. “When I moved here, there were a lot of strong women activists in the trades. Today we’re moving away from that level of activism.”

Meanwhile, the construction industry is anticipating a shortage of skilled workers brought about by an aging workforce. And the number of women seeking employment is expected to increase by 15.1 percent, according to the Department of Labor.

What’s Keeping Women Away?
The notion that trade jobs are unfeminine may discourage women from exploring further. Ruby Jones, community affairs director for Turner Construction, says that when she goes out to high schools some of the girls insinuate that only masculine women work hard-hat jobs. “They don’t realize there’s more to construction than digging a ditch,” she says.

Maria Batayola, employment and diversity manager for King County, believes there are lots of avenues open to women in the trades; it’s not all grunt work. “We have a strong affirmative action program,” she says. “It’s a lot better now than five years ago. The person who heads up the solid waste division is female and at the Cedar Hill regional landfill in Maple Valley, one of the managers is a woman, and a woman heads up the facilities management division, overseeing property and building maintenance. Opportunities for women are there.”

Terry Tilton, assistant to the executive secretary of Washington State Building Trades Council, a lobbying group for the construction industry at the state capitol in Olympia, believes the failure to attract women to the trades has to do with a “disconnect between our industry and schools.” She cites a poll done by Janet Paulsen-Smith, an assistant professor at East Carolina University, who found middle-school students ranked construction 248th on a list of career possibilities, sandwiched between agricultural and janitorial work.

From the scarce turnout at the fair, it would indeed seem that more outreach is needed. Only a few teenage girls showed up, among them Ashley Disney and Jordan Kehrer, who were on spring break. Ashley says she helped her carpenter dad install a bathroom, and is taking technical classes online, learning how to make a robot and a mouse for the computer. Jordan says she learned some building tips from her dad, an electrical engineer.

Discrimination during hiring is also being explored as a possible barrier. Tradeswomen Now and Tomorrow (TNT) did a study of publicly funded construction sites in Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Cleveland, Ohio; Oakland, California; and Portland, Maine, using independent monitors to oversee the hiring process. The group discovered that the use of monitors led to an increase in the number of women who signed on.

“It is clear that merely relying on ‘good faith’ and ‘best efforts’ of contractors to afford equal opportunity will continue to result in worksites almost completely devoid of women,” writes Jennifer K. Brown, vice president and legal director, and Christina Brandt-Young, staff attorney and equal justice works fellow, on the Legal Momentum Web site. Legal Momentum, which used to be called the NOW Legal Defense and Education Fund, represents TNT as well as other nonprofits in the women’s rights arena.

Federal laws stipulate that publicly funded projects must attempt to employ women for at least 6.9 percent of hours worked. A Seattle Times poll sponsored by Elway Research taken a few years ago on I-200 (legislation that would have ended preferential hiring quotas in Washington) found that 80 percent of 400 people believe that women are discriminated against on construction sites.

Most contractors admit that their projects fall way short of federal guidelines, but according to several builders, it is not for lack of trying. Ruby Jones of Turner Construction doesn’t believe women are being turned away at the door. “We’ve got goals, but we’re not able to fill those numbers,” she says. “Women aren’t applying for these jobs.”

Even when female participation in the trades peaked during the early 1990s, many women did not make it past the apprentice level. Lynn Shaw of Tradeswomen Now and Tomorrow observes that the few women who do stay in the trades typically select work as electricians or carpenters rather than sprinkler fitters or ironworkers.

During that high point of 1994, the nonprofit organization Port Jobs began the Apprenticeship Opportunities Project (AOP) with the goal of increasing the numbers of women and minority apprentices on construction worksites throughout King County. Despite the recent decline in women apprentices, Susan Crane, executive director of Port Jobs, believes her staff is making inroads. Two years into the project, Port Jobs found that 13 white females and six minority females, nearly 30 percent of the total number indentured in 17 trades in the county, were referred by AOP. Of those, 26 percent came from what started as a federally funded program, Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Employment for Women (ANEW), which used to offer counseling, life skills training and job search assistance exclusively to women. Four years ago, ANEW opened its doors to men, citing various reasons ranging from a shortage of women to a tightening of welfare laws and fewer federal dollars.

Outreach Efforts
Youth Building King County, which works with Habitat for Humanity building houses in South Seattle for low-income families, currently has 35 participants, two of whom are women, in a program that combines classroom instruction toward a GED and construction basics for 16 to 24-year-old dropouts. Classroom instruction includes carpentry, electricity, plumbing and blueprint reading, safety practice, basic math and physical fitness.

Lakisha Diggins, 23, who entered the program after her release from jail on a felony conviction, is learning all aspects of building, including punctuality. “I was lucky to get into the program,” she says, adding that while she’s happy to get paid for her efforts, she isn’t sure she wants to stay in construction. “I’m taking it one day at a time, trying not to give up.”

At the Apprenticeship and Construction Exploration Partnership with the Seattle School District Joint Apprenticeship Training Committees and Seattle Community College, Nan Johnson introduces students from Franklin and Cleveland High Schools to trades at the college and 10 apprenticeship training centers throughout King County. Students work with apprentices and journey-level workers in weeklong, half-day seminars covering the basic job skills. Graduates receive high school credit for courses in the building trades. In her current class of 40, divided into morning and afternoon, Johnson estimates she’s teaching 10 women; seven years ago, only one or two females would show up.

“I don’t know how many of my graduates get jobs, but we do put students in touch with Port Jobs and Sound Transit,” she says. “Most of my women want to be electricians. They see it as a more glorious trade; the level of education needed is higher, but it’s hard to get in.”

While Port Jobs is exploring why up to a third of the women who sign up as apprentices leave before finishing, no one has tabulated how many women reach journeyman level and stay there. But there appears to be a significant dropout rate for women at the journey level, with new female recruits filling those spaces in a revolving door syndrome. The fact that women don’t stay in construction is worrisome to Susan Crane, who is hoping her study will help explain these phenomena.

The inherent danger must be acknowledged, and perhaps fuels some of the discrimination that some women say is happening on job sites. Construction work can be treacherous, employing two percent of the workforce and accounting for 20 percent of all job-related fatalities. The daily drain and physical hardships take a toll on men and women alike, which may partially account for why women don’t last as long as men at the journey level.

Manuelita Ybarra, program development specialist at the DOL Women’s Bureau, grouses that she and her colleagues have been powerless to stop the exodus. “We’re falling backwards,” she said. “There still aren’t enough female mentors out there.”

At an April meeting to discuss compliance review and retention of apprenticeships under the purview of Washington State Department of Labor and Industries, Bill Chrisman, a manager of apprenticeship programs through five northwest counties, said, “We’re not expanding outreach but we’re giving extra-preference to female applicants.”

At Seattle City Light, Dokes attracts a higher than average number of women and minorities in a mentoring program that is widely hailed as a model for other companies. “Not very many of us have been able to achieve her numbers,” says Robin Murphy, human resources manager at Alaskan Copper and Brass Co. Murphy serves with Dokes on the board of Women in Trades. Approximately 10 percent of Seattle City Light’s laborers are female, while the average in local government-related apprenticeship programs runs about 6 percent. For the private sector, numbers are lower and difficult to track.

Carol Sanders, a civil engineer specializing in construction layout for Turner Construction. Among other companies, says she has trouble finding qualified women. She says she has had to deal with men who “assume right out of the gate that women aren’t competent” and speculates that women leave the industry when they get tired of proving themselves.

Women aren’t interested in the more physical jobs, says Murphy. “We’re finding it hard to find women who want to do heavy work.” Alaskan Copper and Brass employs 20 percent women, but only 6 percent of them are in skilled labor, the fitters and welders.

“Today women think they have to be computer savvy and look good to be successful,” says Dokes. “They don’t realize that demand in the trades is going up, and you can’t outsource your plumber or electrician. At the end of the day, people are still going to a house with walls and an infrastructure that has to be supported.”

Dokes herself didn’t consider the trades when she began looking for work. After a stint in the military, she finished college in Mississippi and, thinking to use her degree in pharmacology, headed west. “I had to move or I’d drown,” she recalls. “Back home, I had no chance. Opportunities for black women were nonexistent.” After several years working as manager of a hospital laboratory in Seattle, she felt stifled in her career path. An ad for a line worker caught her eye and she worked through an apprenticeship program at Seattle City Light to become, in 1992, the first black line worker. “I thrive on the energy,” Dokes says.

A Man’s World?
Dokes apprenticed under Melinda Nichols, a manager with Seattle Parks and Recreation, who holds the distinction of having been, in 1973, the first female carpenter hired in heavy construction since World War II. “It took 200 applications to land my first job, but I didn’t set out to prove anything,” Nichols said. “They hired me as a carpenter at Western Washington University on a lark.” Citing the ribbing she took on the job, Nichols said that she attended a lecture in 1977 on harassment and “I thought to myself that I’d been harassed for years and never knew it.”

The women interviewed for this article largely agreed that for a woman to go into construction, she must be willing to make it in a man’s world. Past research shows that not much has changed in this regard. M.L. Walshok interviewed 87 blue-collar women over three years from several West Coast cities for Blue Collar Women: Pioneers on the Male Frontier. The women who succeeded in the trades, according to Walshok, shared similar traits with men who entered the trades: They were athletic, enjoyed working with tools and took an active interest in cars.

Susan Eisenberg interviewed 30 women in construction for a book published by Cornell University in 1998 on women in trades, and concluded that on the job “men’s reactions ranged from hostile to protective.”

A more recent study by Tradeswomen Now and Tomorrow found that a few men on job sites were refusing to teach women certain tools and machines necessary to expand their skills. “Women tell me they have asked to learn the backhoe and the men said, ‘that’s not for you’,” said Maureen McFadden, vice president of Legal Momentum. “As the equipment becomes more computerized, men still find it threatening to see women on that equipment.” McFadden, who is also on TNT’s board of trustees, continues: “By the time women reach journey level, they don’t have the skills to compete for jobs. That’s the core issue of the discrimination.”

Sarah Driscoll, a Seattle-area carpenter, says she is surprised by the number of male workers who are “angry at women … I’m not always effective at calling men on their stuff.”

Marie Beedle, a field superintendent for Hoffman Construction, observes that there are two sides to this story. As a supervisor, she encounters women who won’t do the heavy work. “You have to be willing to do the same as a guy,” she says. “If a guy asks you if you need help, you’ve got to say no, I can handle this. Some just want to be the sweep-up girls; if they’re content with that, then they aren’t going to develop skills.”

Beedle says she was hired to fill minority hiring goals by a sub-contractor. “I worked for him for seven years and I did it all. I started as a flagger, but I didn’t stay there; I demanded to learn and they were willing to teach me. I ran the backhoe, boom truck, poured concrete, handled plumbing and pipe work … I did a little of everything and after a year took on small supervisory roles at first, and now I’m overseeing one entire construction site.”

Alice Lockridge, fitness training coordinator for the City of Seattle and Seattle City Light in their apprenticeship and technical training department, believes that strong government oversight and apprenticeship programs have created a safety net for women. Although discrimination isn’t as rampant, it exists. “Guys can’t run women off so easily. But they still try. Like in any industry, a few of the men are bullies and the silent majority won’t stand up to them.”

Beedle adds, “A few would rather not see women in this field, but once they see a woman willing to do a job well, then most of the time they won’t have an issue.”

“I went out and busted my heinie every day and made a name for myself,” says Tawny Sayers, a single mom who graduated from Renton Technical and worked laying concrete and pipe for eight years before she became an apprenticeship coordinator for the Northwest Laborers Employer Training Trust Fund. “It’s very physical work and a lot of women don’t want to get dirt under their fingernails or listen to foul-mouthed men, but that’s what a woman’s gotta do if she wants to make it. She can’t be crying all the time about half-naked pictures or dirty jokes. As a woman, I was always under the microscope. I couldn’t sit around like the guys. I had to work harder than they did to earn their respect.”

Port of Seattle’s Schab believes that if a woman “works smart” and shows how much of an asset she can be, men will come around. “I can do things that a man can’t do,” she says. “A man can’t fit into crawl spaces like I can, nor can he stick his arm into holes to fish out wires like me.”

Joanna Kadish is a freelance writer living on Mercer Island.

©2005 Caliope Publishing Company