Women workers assert trade jobs are viable career options

A day before the Building and Woodworkers’ International’s (BWI) 5^th World Congress, a jampacked room of more than 200 women trade unionists gathered on 4 October at the Marriot Hotel and Conference Centre in Madrid, Spain and discussed how trade jobs, traditionally the domain of men workers, are viable career options for women too.

Carrying the theme “She can do the job,” the morning conference of BWI’s Women in Trade (WiT) conference was opened by BWI Africa Regional Representative Crecentia Mofokeng and Nina Kreutzman of the European Federation of Building and Wood Workers (EFBWW)-Women Network and Rakennusliitto. 

Afterwards, Katerina Zubova, a tower crane operator and a member of Ukraine’s PROFBUD, Doreen Cannon, a plumber from the Trades Women Building Bridges in the United States, Meliza Motea Ortiguerra, and Engineer and President of the BMKQ in Qatar and Teena Simpson, a builder labourer, from Australia’s CFMEU took turns in discussing the situation of women in trade in their respective countries. 

Zubova and Cannon shared how they enjoy their jobs, which they said while tough, paid relatively well even as they try to further narrow down the gender gap in wages and employment.  Meanwhile, Ortiguerra narrated the difficulties of being a woman worker in a very male-dominated society like Qatar. “While there were real improvements for women workers in Qatar, discrimination and harassment remain issues that we continue to face,” Ortiguerra said.  

For her part, Simpson said that Australia is in the right direction regarding women in trades. “Women workers, especially those employed in trade jobs, are more and more being accepted and becoming a normal feature of Australia’s industries.  But women workers must continue to pursue higher unities and levels of cooperation and solidarity to protect our rights and welfare,” she said. 

An open forum was subsequently held where Congress women delegates made various interventions from statements of support and appreciation for the speakers’ presentations, up to questions on how to navigate male-dominated workplaces to organise trades trainings and improve gender relations amongst workers. “Thank you for the very inspiring and powerful sharing of perspectives and experiences. Sometimes I feel very alone in my workplace, but today, I am very happy to be in a room full of women trade unionists. It makes very happy,” a delegate from the Swedish Painters’ Union said.