WUNRN
USA - FEMALE ELECTRICIANS BURN OUT
ON MALE DOMINANCE
For female electricians time has stood still. While women are gaining rank and numbers in many other highly-paid fields, here the numbers are stuck at token levels of about 1 percent. An annual women's construction fair in California might help.
WOMENSENEWS
As a child
Elizabeth Fox, 44, wanted to be an electrician when she grew up. Her
grandfather and father were both electricians in New York City.
"My
dad always said not to do it," Fox said. "He saw when women first
came into the industry and he didn't like the way they were being treated."
She
figured things would be different in the late 1980s, almost two decades after
women began entering the trade.
But
now, 24 years after completing her apprenticeship in the International
Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 3 in New York City, she knows she was
wrong.
It's not
that she doesn't like her work. In fact she has enjoyed the diversity of jobs,
ranging from traffic signals, making fiber optic expressway cameras record and
bridges. But the atmosphere has made her question her career choice.
"Some
male electricians have told me I shouldn't be there or have gone behind my back
and say they weren't going to take orders from a woman," said Fox, who
also cites nude pictures of women on jobsites as efforts to "put women in
their place."
In most cases
of workplace disputes and harassment, Fox has been able to address the issue
onsite. However, in one instance, she had her foreman submit a sexual
harassment claim on her behalf to the union's local.
That
resolved matters to her satisfaction, but many women don't try that route.
"Most women do not file harassment claims. They have tons of legitimate complaints, but they want to work, not spend time in court," said Francoise Jacobsohn, project manager of the Equality Works program at Legal Momentum, the country's oldest legal defense and education fund for women, based in New York. She added that many tradeswomen only file when their livelihood is threatened.
'A Model to Nowhere'
Susan
Eisenberg, an electrician and current resident artist and scholar at the
Brandeis University Women's Studies Research Center in Waltham, Mass., calls
most unions' approach to dealing with such problems a "model to
nowhere."
The
International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers has a diversity-and-inclusion
education initiative and recommends a sexual harassment policy to its 11
geographical districts, but it's not required.
"Civil
rights issues are basic. They shouldn't be voluntary," Eisenberg said.
Eisenberg,
author of 1998 book "We'll Call You If We Need You: Experiences of Women
Working Construction," created a mixed-art installation entitled "On
Equal Terms: Women in Construction: 30 Years and Still Organizing," which
tours campuses. Its next stop is Michigan State University in January 2012.
She said
many women leave the trade after just a few years on the job, making it a field
where time seems to stand still for women.
In 1970,
1.2 percent of construction trade employees were women. In 2000, they made up 2
percent of construction trades.
Among
electricians the number was even lower. Women held 1 percent of all electrician
jobs, according to 2009 Census data.
Electrical
workers belong to the largest specialty building trade, with 874,000 members
who represent 42 percent of all workers in this occupational sector, which
includes carpenters, plumbers and roofers.