Craftswomen aim for a fair trade

Saturday, May 05, 2007

CASEY PARKS

ALOHA -- Never mind she doesn't have her driver's license yet. Leslie Bozich can fix a car.

Bozich, 16, spends half her school day in an advanced auto technology class taking apart engines. In a class of 30, she's the only girl.

Her friends think it's cool, though they wouldn't want to do it -- too many dirty things, they say. But when their cars break down, they call her.

One day, Bozich says, she's going to own a shop.

Once off-limits to women, skilled trades -- welding, sheet metal work, carpentry -- are increasingly open to girls. And with baby boomers retiring, trade unions are going after female recruits more aggressively.

They're creating female-specific Web sites. Putting money into career fairs. Altering work shirts to include flower buttons. They're also trying to convince school district leaders that students can learn their required math and science in classes like Bozich's.

Finding support

The class Bozich attends -- a program that brings students from every Beaverton school to Aloha High School -- includes guys like Simon Roth, a junior at Merlo Station High School who says women are as capable as men.

"I'm teaching one girl how to weld, and she's better than me, honestly," he says.

Bozich likes being the only girl in a class of nice guys, but in the 1970s, being the only one meant discrimination and abuse.

Connie Ashbrook, Oregon's first certified elevator repairwoman, experienced that mistreatment and expected big changes when the trades opened to women in 1978, following a lawsuit filed against the federal Department of Labor.

"But that didn't happen," she says. "I realized if I wanted to have company on the job, I would have to do something about it."

Ashbrook started Oregon Tradeswomen Inc., a group that encourages women to join the trades by helping them with financial and emotional support.

This week, Ashbrook's group is hosting a three-day fair that connects participants to trades women with plenty of success to share: High wages. Great benefits. Enjoyable -- if physically demanding -- jobs.

The event wraps up today with hands-on activities allowing novices to climb power lines, build houses, mix cement and weld steel.

Barriers to jobs

Though many local trade companies credit Ashbrook's group with boosting the number of women they employ, the 2000 Census shows that only 5.8 percent of trades workers in Oregon are women, the Bureau of Labor Industries reports. And in many companies, plenty of women are still the only ones.

At Bonneville Power Administration, Cristi Dyami is set to be the first linewoman when her apprenticeship ends next year. She'll make $36 an hour climbing electric poles and installing underground systems. Portland General Electric also has only one woman in the job.

Discrimination is one culprit, says Stephen Simms, director of the apprenticeship and training division in the state's Bureau of Labor and Industries. Others are lack of knowledge and opportunity.

"In this industry you learned about trade opportunities from a cousin, brother who worked," Simms says. "Women have not had those informal networks."

That must change, Simms says.

"What's happening is the white males who used to rely on those networks are thinking, 'Heck, I'm going to get an office job. I can go to college,' " Simms says. "There's another drain on that work force."

During the worker shortage of World War II, employers turned to women as an untapped resource. Simms expects companies to do the same.

Plus, women are assets to crews, says Laura Jenkins, a former electrician who teaches apprentices through the NECA/IBEW electrical training center. When a linewoman shimmies to the top of a pole, she barely shakes it. When there's a tight, small spot, a smaller woman can easily climb inside.

Starting in school

Despite the need for women, recruiting isn't businesses' job alone, says Maureen Shaw, director of staffing and recruitment for Portland General Electric. Society and schools must change.

When budgets are cut, professional technical and elective classes are often the first to go, cutting opportunities for the few girls enrolled. In the Beaverton School District, only Sunset and Aloha high schools have wood or auto shop classes. In Portland, only Benson, Wilson, Franklin and Roosevelt high schools have such classes.

Jim Cox, a teacher at Neah-Kah-Nie High School in Northern Tillamook County, lobbied for eight years to start a construction class after budget cuts killed electives. Now, students build houses that are sold to finance the classes.

Many unions also work with school districts, showing off lesson plans that integrate math and science with trade skills.

For Bozich, that connection is key. In regular classes, she gets distracted and forgets the material. She's a hands-on learner. When she can fix, break and rebuild parts, she is learning science and math she won't forget.

Casey Parks: 503-294-5955; caseyparks@news.oregonian.com

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