by Kate Harrison
Union pipefitter Savy Man Doherty is seen on billboards, job site scrims, and bus shelters throughout Massachusetts.
When the US government opened the doors to women entering the construction trades in 1978, less than 3% of tradespeople were women. Forty years later, the number of tradeswomen across the country remains at just 3%. But not in the Massachusetts building trades. Over the past decade, the Policy Group on Tradeswomen’s Issues (PGTI) has put Massachusetts on the map, leading industry collaborations that have boosted the number of women in union apprenticeship to over 7% and growing. The number of female apprentices across the state has tripled since 2012, and 92% of Massachusetts’ female apprentices are in union apprenticeships.
PGTI is a regional collaboration of over 75 stakeholders co-convened by the Metropolitan Boston Building Trades Council, the New England Regional Council of Carpenters, Building Pathways pre-apprenticeship, and the Mass AFL-CIO. They meet bimonthly to increase both the supply of qualified tradeswomen and the demand for women on jobsites.
PGTI’s integrated supply and demand strategy has moved the needle by recognizing that a healthy workforce requires not only a supply of qualified and trained workers, but also a demand for these workers. PGTI has established Access and Opportunity Committees (AOCs) on over $3.5 billion of construction on the UMass Boston, Lowell, and Amherst campuses, as well as the Mass Gaming Commission’s two casinos. At AOCs owners, contractors, unions, and the community work together to ensure that all parties are exerting maximum effort to meet workforce hiring goals.
“For years, the enforcement of federal and statewide diversity requirements has been lax. With new provisions to the Boston Residents Jobs Policy, and a pressing labor shortage, our AOC partners see that diversity is the future of the construction workforce, and that women and people of color are interested in these jobs,” says Susan Moir, director of research for PGTI.
In addition to working with contractors on demand, PGTI collaborates with its partners to ensure a supply of qualified women workers in the pipeline. They recently launched the Northeast Center for Tradeswomen’s Equity, a resource center dedicated to helping women find careers in the union building trades, and Build A Life That Works, an outreach and marketing campaign designed to raise awareness about opportunities for women in the union building trades. The campaign features the stories and images of real tradeswomen employed at Massachusetts jobsites and can be seen on electronic billboards, jobsite scrims, and bus shelters throughout the commonwealth.
Build A Life That Works invites women working in other industries to consider the benefits of union construction careers, and then provides them with information about the trades, how to apply, and what it takes to succeed in the field. Dorchester resident Savy Man-Doherty is prominently featured throughout the Build A Life That Works campaign as one of the inspiring stories about real tradeswomen. Savy is a fifth-year pipefitter apprentice currently working on the Wynn Boston Harbor development site. Prior to becoming a tradeswoman, Savy was dissatisfied with her job and making slightly above minimum wage. She then turned to the Building Pathways pre-apprenticeship program and began her journey to a life-changing career in construction.
With both supply and demand initiatives underway, the face of the construction workforce in Massachusetts is changing. NCTE and PGTI are working toward the goal of 20% women in the building trades by 2020. The labor shortage requires industry stakeholders to strategically consider who the construction workers of the future will be. Project owners and contractors are prioritizing diversity, so there’s value to the industry to continue to integrate best practices in promoting workforce diversity into their business operations.
Kate Harrison is a pipeline navigator at the Northeast Center for Tradeswomen’s Equity.
PGTI offers customized technical assistance to industry stakeholders, including subcontractors and general contractors. For more information, or to book a TA workshop, go to policygroupontradeswomen.org.
For more information about the Build A Life That Works Campaign, sponsorship opportunities, or women workers, visit buildalifema.org.
