Women Sing Blue-Collar Blues : Males Still Dominate in the Craft and Industrial Ranks
Patricia Doler left a job as a fitness center manager in 1986 to become a firefighter, attracted by the pay, benefits and opportunity “to make a difference” in the world.
And although she was a pioneer--only the second female firefighter in the Santa Clara County Fire Department--she figured that plenty of other women would follow.
“You need people of all shapes and sizes to go into places like attics, collapsed tunnels and other confined spaces, and that’s one of the things that women bring,” Doler said.
Today, however, women remain a rarity among the ranks of on-the-line firefighters and in many other bastions of high-paying blue-collar employment. Even as women make substantial advances in professions such as accounting, law and medicine, their inroads have been limited in the production, construction and public safety jobs traditionally dominated by men.
“College-educated women have really broken through in a number of fields that had been male preserves just a generation ago. But the non-traditional jobs that haven’t budged are those blue-collar craft and industrial jobs,” said Karen Nussbaum, director of the Labor Department’s women’s bureau and former executive director of 9 to 5, the National Assn. of Working Women.
Nussbaum cited estimates that while roughly half of law school students and a quarter of medical school students are women, fewer than 9% of the jobs in the skilled trades are held by women.
Consequently, women’s advocates have begun paying more attention to the blue-collar workplace. The entry of women into “non-traditional jobs” has been one focus of the California AFL-CIO’s three-day “Women in the Work Force” conference in Los Angeles, which ends today.
Likewise, the Labor Department’s Glass Ceiling Commission has expanded from its initial focus on workplace barriers faced by women and minorities in management. The commission is now exploring the plight of women and minorities “whose feet are stuck in the mud” because they can’t find good blue-collar jobs, said the panel’s executive director, Joyce D. Miller. The study group is due to deliver its recommendations on breaking down employment barriers to Congress next January.
The reasons why women have garnered so few high-paying blue-collar jobs go far beyond overt discrimination. High-paying blue-collar employment in general has suffered in recent years as manufacturers, local governments and other employers have slashed their payrolls to save money.
Women also may be deterred by hostile working environments in traditionally male industries. A 1992 survey of women working in the skilled trades in Chicago found that 83% encountered unwelcome sexual remarks on the job.
And not all women are as upbeat as Doler about the prospects for women breaking into the ranks of firefighters and other physically demanding jobs.
“There’s not a lot of women who can pass the agility tests and not that many who are even interested,” said Cindy Fralick, who became the first woman firefighter in the Los Angeles County Fire Department 11 years ago and was one of the speakers at the California AFL-CIO conference.
Even Doler, 36, who once was a nationally ranked women’s weightlifter, found she had to adapt her own techniques to perform such physically demanding tasks as setting up tall ladders, opening fire hydrants and pulling out fire hoses.
Yet a key point, Doler says, is that there are alternate techniques for performing physically demanding jobs. The problem, she says, is that training programs too often are aimed only at big men--everyone else is left to his or her own devices to figure out a proper technique.
Doler, union officials and others attending the conference are calling for improved training and more aggressive recruiting to overcome deep-seated cultural attitudes that keep women out of traditionally male jobs. Otherwise, they say, women will continue to be locked into low-paying jobs in retailing and other service fields.
It’s a matter of basic fairness and of being able to earn a better living, Nussbaum said.
“There will be a million new jobs created in construction over the next 10 years, and women should have a fair share of them,” she said.
Discrimination’s Many Forms
Overt discrimination, more subtle forms of resistance and concerns about sexual harassment have played major roles in keeping women from moving into high-paying blue-collar fields. Chicago Women in Trades, an advocacy and support group for women in blue-collar jobs, polled its members in 1992 about their problems on the job. The percentages below reflect replies from the 182 members of the group who responded.
* 88% reported pictures of naked or partially dressed women in the workplace
* 83%: unwelcome sexual remarks
* 57%: being touched or asked for sex
* 36%: remarks about being a lesbian
* 80%: no toilets or dirty toilets
* 60%: being given the heaviest or dirtiest assignments
* 54%: not being given proper training
* 49%: remarks about race or ethnicity
* 44%: unfair layoff practices
* 38%: losing out on the job because they were female
Source: Chicago Women in Trades
