“There are huge economics benefits to women in terms of pay,” says Hughes. “Some of the trades pay very well, relative to other work that women typically do in retail sales, food industry, etc., so they can access better earnings. Trades may also provide full-time hours rather than ‘non-standard’ hours [part-time, temporary], so women have more reliable earnings. These are really, really important benefits in my mind, and can’t be overstated.”
Indeed, low earnings are a significant problem for many Albertan women, particularly single moms who work in low-paying sectors such as retail. Compare the top average wage for a millwright at $33.23 an hour to the top average wage for a cashier ($14.44) or even to the top average wage for a data entry clerk ($18.04). Also, compare the set schedule that Lyons typically works – 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday to Friday – to that of someone in retail whose shifts change constantly.
Addressing the issue of low earnings and poverty by recruiting women for the trades is not a novel idea. In fact, it drove a group of City of Edmonton social workers to start Women Building Futures (WBF) in 1998, an organization that has grown into a successful training centre for carefully selected women. (The screening process takes four days.) “Our dream is to help women get out of poverty and never go back,” reads a line from its website. A good dream to have, how-ever in the past eight years WBF has only had the resources to graduate roughly 300 women.
This is changing, though. In December, WBF moved into a new building with the space to graduate 400 women every year. The not-for-profit took over a 40,000-square-foot, three-storey warehouse, retrofitting the first two floors into a training facility with workshops and classrooms. (The third floor, and two new floors added above,contain 42 units of affordable housing, with 18 units set aside for women with children, the intent being that they’ll be WBF students.)
To JudyLynn Archer, a former truck driver and current CEO of the organization, women working in the trades just makes sense.
“Certainly, we have no shortage of jobs in the trades in Alberta,” she says. “We also have, unfortunately, no shortage of women working below the poverty level. Lots of women like me, for whatever reason, didn’t go on to post-secondary education and find themselves in their 20s and 30s working in jobs where they’re making under $18,000 a year. They’re hard workers. But they are stuck.
“There are definitely lots of opportunities for women,” adds Archer, “but they need to be ready, through training and preparation, for that workplace culture in the trades. With proper training and prep, the success rate goes through the roof and these jobs become careers.”
What will happen in the future? With NAIT and SAIT enrollment rising and WBF’s capacity increasing 10-fold, female ascension into this last bastion of “man’s-world” employment seems assured.
Yet as much as I support this advancement, I have questions. If women enter the trades to the same degree as medicine and law, who will work those $18,000 a year jobs? Will new Canadians become further entrenched as the working poor? And here I must confess a strange longing for an economy that allows mothers to choose whether they work or stay home with their children.
Lyons has replaced the gaskets and reassembled the sump pump. She disposes the slurry properly, puts away her tools and drops her hard hat on her desk. She emerges from the building at 4 p.m., just in time for the last of the golden light. Without her coveralls, she looks like any other pretty girl.
As I drive home with her and a female engineering intern from Newfoundland on the Friday night of a long weekend, the fully-feminine Lyons emerges. She and her co-worker joke about telling guys they meet that they’re nurses. Lyons has no luck with men, she says, and besides, “That’s not important right now.” But what about the future, I ask? I’m always asking her about the future. Lyons doesn’t see herself in this position forever. It’s a stepping stone. “As much as I love my job….” she says, trailing off.
“Physically, I don’t know… the noise, the pollutants. I do want to have kids someday.” She sees herself maybe moving into an office position, maybe teaching, but really, she doesn’t know. It’s Friday night, after all, the long weekend stretches out before us, and hey, remember, she likes to fly by the seat of her pants. U
Category: Work
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