Wanted: Women in Construction

Hammered by a growing labor shortage, the construction industry has launched a manhunt--and womanhunt--for new workers.

According to the Labor Department, the industry needs to attract 240,000 new workers each year to keep up with its building demands. But despite fervent recruitment efforts, the flow of new talent through the pipeline remains sluggish.

Males between ages 16 and 24 historically were construction’s lifeblood. But this age group is showing little interest in the vocation. In an ABC News careers poll of 10,000 high school students, the adolescents ranked construction trades 251st of 252 potential vocations (“cowboy” came in last). Many are being lured away by another labor-starved industry with a far glitzier image: high technology.

It’s no surprise, then, that industry honchos are finally giving women, who make up 46.1% of America’s work force but only 9% of building industry workers, more attention. The previously estrogen-phobic “trowel trades” represented by the Bricklayers Union and International Masonry Institute, which boasted less than 0.2% female workers, have announced efforts to step up their recruitment of women. Colleges such as the University of Iowa are advertising female-oriented construction courses. Apprenticeship programs throughout the nation are welcoming women with open arms and even free toolboxes. But are women coming to the job site? Or does there remain a structural deficiency in the construction industry that keeps them away?

Despite the industry’s increased overtures to budding Rosie Riveters, the percentage of women in construction has declined since 1991, when women accounted for 11.4% of the work force, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Only 2.7% of an estimated 5.4 million workers in skilled trades such as drywall lathers, roofers, electricians and plumbers are women.

Internal and External Resistance

Some industry analysts suggest that decades of discrimination and harassment in the field are repelling women applicants. Others argue that, despite changing mores, females are still socialized to avoid blue-collar work. And yet others believe that, despite the industry’s publicized recruitment efforts, firms and unions are making little effort to train and hire women.

“The hardest thing is getting contractors to accept them,” says Jan Bennett, president of Opportunity Marketing, an equal employment opportunity consultant for Los Angeles-based PCL Construction Co., which is helping build the Staples Center near the Los Angeles Convention Center. “I’ve had plenty of women come in here crying, saying, ‘He doesn’t want me. He says I’m too slow,’ while the men come in and ask, ‘Why do I have to hire women?’ ”

Contractors who work on federally funded commercial projects valued at $10,000 or more are required to hire and train women. For the Los Angeles-Long Beach area, the Labor Department has set a goal that 6.9% of employees in each project’s skilled trades must be female. But although these jobs pay well--some as much as $35 per hour--many contractors claim they are unable to find and hire enough skilled laborers to meet their quotas.

Residential contractors are under no such government mandates. Iris Harrell, president of Harrell Remodeling in Menlo Park, Calif., says she started her own company because no residential construction company would hire her.

“I was told my hands would be too rough to hold at night, and I wouldn’t be safe at the construction site,” Harrell says. “Very few women come into this industry without help from fathers, husbands and brothers. It’s still considered unfeminine to do construction work.”

“It’s really frustrating that we haven’t made any progress,” says Lynn Shaw, founder of the Long Beach-based Women in Non-Traditional Employment Roles. “Professional women are breaking the glass ceiling, but working-class women are stuck on the concrete floor.”

Construction’s difficult work conditions also may prompt women to bolt. Laborers toil at physically taxing trade jobs in summer heat and winter chill. Work is cyclical. Apprenticeship wages are humble. Risk of injury is higher than in most other industries. According to a 1994 Labor Department study, one out of every 100 construction workers can expect to be disabled by a serious fall each year. The average construction worker leaves the industry by age 33, according to the National Assn. of Home Builders’ Research Center.

Yet despite the industry’s tough work conditions, its benefits are comparatively scarce. A 1996 Employee Benefit Research Institute survey reported that only 44.4% of construction employees had employer-provided health benefits, and that just 35.4% had retirement benefits. Compare this with manufacturing, which offered 85.1% of its workers health benefits and 68.2% of them retirement benefits.

Can such an industry lure women to its rolls without a major renovation? According to Thomas Helfrich, president of the Builders Exchange trade group in Rochester, N.Y., individual employers are taking steps to build better reputations. Some are offering pay hikes, increased overtime opportunities and augmented benefits such as day care, senior care and employee assistance programs. Others are trying hard to create “women-friendly” workplaces.

Women Still Face Discrimination

But according to many women in the building industry, there hasn’t been much concrete change.

Industry women still face obstacles that their male counterparts do not, says Kimberly Kingston, a construction manager for Larsen Homes in Englewood, Colo. Subcontractors and clients may closely quiz female managers about their knowledge of foundation bolts, headers and shear panels--even when they’ve worked in the business for years. Male crew members may refuse to work for them. And co-workers may give them a hard time.

“There are guys that have never worked with a woman superintendent before who’ll either treat you like they’re your lover or like you don’t know anything,” Kingston says. “But eventually, most of them get past that after they’ve worked with you.”

Cheryl Gibson, the first female president of the Building Assn. of Superior California, runs Von-Jac Developments Inc. in Granite Bay, Calif. She says most of her work experiences have been positive, but notes, “Sometimes when a supervisor and I go out in the field, they’ll direct the questions to him, even though I do all the bidding. It’s interesting that they automatically look to the man, but I’ve learned not to let anything like that get to me.”

Perhaps in the end, it will be the women already in the trenches who’ll be able to recruit other women to their ranks. Some are currently building a foundation for this.

Last year, the National Assn. of Home Builders Women’s Council, in association with Pozzi Wood Windows, launched a women’s mentoring program called Cornerstone to provide resources and education and help “create an employment environment that is more attractive and desirable to women,” according to Jean Miller, the association’s 1997 Women’s Council president and task force chair. At meetings of Women in Non-Traditional Employment Roles and regional gatherings of the 6,000-member National Assn. of Women in Construction, women swap war stories, offer moral support and share information about employment opportunities and on-the-job skills.

“I don’t think there’s enough of us yet to form a critical mass that will promote change,” says Sarah Peck, president of Rouse/Chamberlin Homes in Exton, Pa., and Professional Builder magazine’s 1997 Builder of the Year.

Helfrich believes that the industry’s image problem has to be remodeled from within if it hopes to attract the “womanpower” it so desperately needs.

“When I spoke at a New York State Apprenticeship Council’s annual meeting, I asked 300 people in the room, ‘How many of you would want your daughters or granddaughters to work in construction?’

“Less than 10% of them raised their hands. And these were people in the industry.”