Women will get help to join the construction trades

A new three-year program is hoping to increase the number of women apprenticing in the construction trades in New Brunswick.

The program will provide mentoring to women who need support in order to break into the non-traditional trades.

Hélène Savoie has been hired to co-ordinate the program, which is launched by the New Brunswick Building and Construction Trades Council and the Department of Post-secondary Education, Training and Labour.

Savoie says only three per cent of registered apprentices in the province are women, despite making up more than half of the population.

She's looking at recruiting 15 to 20 women that she help as they go through the multi-year program of learning a skill and apprenticing with an employer.

"We're  going to follow them for three years. We're going to give them extra resources, problem-solving situations and create a group where they can rely on each other and not only themselves," she said.

"We need to understand the limits and the challenges they face and how employers can better recruit them and keep them on."

Savoie says the women in the program will have access to other women in the trades to talk about frustrations and problems at work.  

She says a lot of women are not interested in the trades because of problems on worksites but that can be fixed.

"A bit of bullying, a bit of sexual comments that you hear a lot and some women don't take it as well and some women are saying, 'I just need to have someone on the end of the line to call someone when i have a bad day,'" she says.

She says they are also looking at getting women to support each other.

"It's going to be a network of women working in non-traditional trade and we're going to do that with Facebook, with networking events, these girls will get an event every six months to gather together," she says.

Savoie says she hopes these women get through the training program and find employment, which will then allow them to go on to become mentors for the next cohort of women who want to enter the trades.

Savoie says she will also work with employers to look at ways to deal with respect in the workplace, sexism and how to make women comfortable in a non traditional environment.

'I love working with my hands'

Jessie Savoy is in her second week of training to become a boiler maker.

She says as a child she spent a lot of time in her dad's shop and likes making things out of metal.  

"My father brought me up in his shop, welding, grinding, doing things like that and I found great comfort in it," Savoy said.

"I really enjoyed it. I love working with my hands."

She says her dad and her brother are also boiler makers and she's not afraid of taking up the challenge.

"I know that there are some difficulties that women run into in the workplace and my hope is that being part of this program will help fix some of those problems. she says.

She's looking forward to having an access to a mentor. She says she hopes to find work in New Brunswick and hopes that her boyfriend will as well since he's also in the building trades.

Kim Blyth, the assistant business manager for the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers, Iron Ship Builders, Blacksmiths, Forgers and Helpers, Local 73, says with the number of trades people retiring over the next five years there will be many opportunities for women to find work.

He says boiler makers can make $36 an hour plus benefits and expenses.