The Context Why are women under-represented in the trades sector?…

QuestionAnswered step-by-stepThe Context Why are women under-represented in the trades sector?…The Context Why are women under-represented in the trades sector?  In this assignment you will discuss this topic within a Canadian context.  This assignment gives you an opportunity to read and critically assess divergent points of view and to present your findings in a short report. The ApproachSeveral articles on women in the trades are provided for you below.  Skim the articles so that you can obtain an overview of women employed in skilled trades.  Determine the barriers women face and actions taken to improve female representation in the industry. Ensure that your writings covers the barriers and interventions (including the Canadian context) and that the articles you selected are current.  If you need to, continue to find more relevant sources to add to the 8 articles selected from the list.Use the information gleaned from the articles to write a report on women employed in the trades sector. In your report, establish a clear position on the topic, provide critical analysis, and include thoughtful recommendations. The StructurePrepare a 5 to 7-page report that includes the following sections.Title Page: Use APA Style and include your name, course code & section, and the date. Title your report with an informative title.  Part 1: IntroductionCreate a context for your report byexplaining the purpose and scope of your report,previewing your discussion, andreferring to your research.Part 2: Discussion DetailsEvaluate the arguments about women working in tradesConsider these elements:the evidence and rationaleany gaps or unanswered questionshow the organization and format of individual articles may enhance or detract from readabilityPart 3:  Conclusions and RecommendationsConclude your report bybriefly summarizing your discussion details,recommending which policies should be implemented,recommending areas for further research. References List: Use A.P.A Style   Article 1. Time to trade in sexism for fairness on the job. Nicol, Janet. Herizons, vol. 33, no. 2, 2019 In March, the federal government announced more than $3 million in spending to boost the number of women working in trades occupations in Canada. The investment is long overdue, tradeswomen say, given the government’s stated commitment to gender equality and the country’s ongoing labour shortage in trades jobs.Patty Hajdu, minister of employment, workforce development and labour, announced spending of $3,141,000 to enhance entry, promote advancement and improve employment outcomes for female apprentices. Over the next three years, some 750 women apprentices, including approximately 100 Indigenous women in Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan, are to receive employment and networking assistance to complete training and obtain their Red Seal certification. The Liberal government is also providing $40 million dollars to Skills Canada to encourage more young people–male and female–to work in skilled trades.A new generation of women may be in for a shock, however, when they decide to go into a trade. According to a 2017 British Columbia report on women in trades occupations, discrimination, harassment and unwelcoming workplaces effectively keep women out of staying in trades work. As such, the programs receiving federal funding will also focus on retention strategies.The report, entitled Enhancing the Retention and Advancement of Women in Trades in British Columbia, found that many women do not complete their apprenticeship training because of discrimination and harassment by male peers and employers. The report cites a Statistics Canada study which found that between four and 12 percent of male apprentices in most major trade groups completed their training, while the completion rates of female apprentices was between two and eight percent.”You have to have a thick skin to make it,” according to Lisa Langevin, an electrician in British Columbia with 17 years’ experience in a trade she entered when she was 33.In 2011, a Statistics Canada report showed a total of 4,280 women (3.2 percent) were working in trades occupations in B.C. The 2017 report found only four percent of B.C. tradespeople were female.According to Statistics Canada’s Labour Force Survey (2016) a shortage of workers in construction trades means that the sector will need to replace 250,000 retiring workers in the next 10 years, in addition to hiring 11,000 new workers.The B.C. report concluded, “While the decades-long efforts in several provinces helped to open some doors, they did not address systemic barriers to the ongoing employment of women and minority groups…. Women have made limited inroads into the trades due to persistent barriers, including employer resistance to hiring women, as well as gender discrimination and sexual harassment.””The construction industry is culturally behind everyone else,” Langevin says, citing both racist and sexist comments on male-dominated work sites. “Women love the work, but they are not staying. We need to change the culture. We need to network and mentor.”According to Women Building Futures, a recruitment and training group in Alberta, the reasons women leave the trades have little to do with skills or interest and more to do with workplace culture.”The way women deal with harassment is to either quit, or ask for a transfer to another site,” Langevin says. We need to have a respectful workplace that is more welcoming to women.”In her position on the board of the B.C. chapter of Build Together, an organization supporting women in skilled construction trades, Langevin met Julia Ballantyne, a 29-year-old refrigerator, heating, air conditioning and ventilation apprentice.”I’ve been very lucky,” Ballantyne says. “Our trade is diverse. We practice electrical, plumbing and refrigeration technician work. There are a whole bunch of trades and technical skills involved. There is less of that bravado culture.”Ballantyne and Langevin were on the committee that helped produce the B.C. report. Its recommendations include increased outreach efforts to grow and strengthen the next generation of tradeswomen; engaging employers and other organizations to promote the business benefits of hiring women; creating organizational policies and practices; combatting bullying and harassment; promoting flexible workplace policies and practices; and maintaining close, ongoing follow-up with employers, unions and tradeswomen.A new federal apprenticeship incentive grant for women will provide women training in male-dominated trades with $3,000 in each of their first two years of training. In addition to the existing apprenticeship completion grant, women could quality for $8,000 in support for training.A pre-apprenticeship program will receive a $46 million commitment from the federal government over the next five years. The government is also spending $17.8 million over the next three to five years to get more women into construction jobs and to help other marginalized workers–including Indigenous peoples, newcomers, and those with disabilities, access to funds.by JANET NICOL  Article 2If you want women in trades, build better workplaces.Renzetti, Elizabeth. Globe & Mail, 7 Aug. 2021. When Natasha Fritz became a carpenter 15 years ago, she found that her colleagues on job sites often wouldn’t refer to her by name, but instead as “sweetheart” or “princess.” Sometimes they’d say, “get the girl to do it.” Before a job interview, she was asked if she was planning on getting pregnant soon.It took her longer to find a job than many of the male students she’d studied carpentry alongside at college, some of whom had positions lined up even before they left school. One prospective employer told her that there was no way she would be capable of the physical demands the job required.”I got a lot of stupid and inappropriate comments,” Ms. Fritz said in an interview. It may not surprise you to learn that she decided to strike out on her own, and for the past seven years has run her own company, Natural Carpentry. She’s also become a critic of sexism in the construction industry, and an advocate for making the skilled trades a more welcoming place for women. Not just getting them into the trades, which is a relatively easy first step, but reforming workplaces so that women don’t end up leaving.That’s a much tougher proposition.A couple of months ago, Ms. Fritz’s advocacy made headlines. She heard an episode of The Construction Life podcast in which the hosts and a guest talked about whistling at women, and laughed at a comment about trying to grab them.Ms. Fritz posted an excerpt of the podcast alongside statistics about sexual assault and harassment, which caused the hosts to launch a $15-million defamation lawsuit against her (the suit has since been dropped).The very issue of silencing is a crucial one. If no one speaks up about sexism in the industry, how will anything change? The comments underneath Ms. Fritz’s Instagram post were full of other women in male-dominated industries discussing the ways they’d been harassed, marginalized and silenced. Many of the commenters applauded Ms. Fritz for calling out harmful behaviour in an industry that does not exactly welcome constructive criticism.”Ten years ago I wouldn’t be speaking up because I wouldn’t be confident enough to do it or I’d worry that it would negatively impact my career,” Ms. Fritz says.”Whereas at this point I don’t really care. Who am I upsetting? A bunch of old white dudes in construction? Who cares.”At the moment, women make up less than 4 per cent of skilled tradespeople in Canada. That’s a problem for a country facing a shortage in these areas in the near future, as an aging cohort of workers retires. In some lucrative areas, such as crane operation, apprenticeship programs are filled nearly 100 per cent by men.The most obvious solution would be to persuade half the population that this is a rewarding career path. But even while governments and postsecondary institutions are working hard to attract women into professional programs, there’s a lot less emphasis on keeping them in those jobs once they’ve graduated.”Lots of people don’t stay in the industry because the atmosphere is pretty toxic,” Ms. Fritz says. She has some suggestions for making it more welcoming: Change the practice of hazing new apprentices with demeaning pranks; offer career guidance for women who want to change professions or rise to management roles; make it easier for women to have access to equipment that is designed for them. When Ms. Fritz started in carpentry, she couldn’t find steel-toed boots in her size, or work gloves. Even today, safety harnesses are designed for flat male chests.Other suggestions include making industrial workplaces friendlier for people with small children, by providing access to child care or more flexible working hours.The systemic barriers that prevent women’s full participation in workplaces are no surprise to the people who study them. At the University of Quebec in Montreal, Karen Messing has been researching women’s occupational health and disparities in the workplace for decades, and she’s gathered the findings in a fascinating new book, Bent Out of Shape: Shame, Solidarity, and Women’s Bodies at Work. “Sexism at work is a pretty big flamespouting dragon,” she writes.One key takeaway from Dr.Messing’s research, she told me in an interview, is the “deep resistance” to the idea that workplaces are experienced differently by men and women. The very idea is considered political, even though Dr. Messing and her colleagues have spent decades documenting the factual underpinnings of this discrepancy, and why it should change. If it doesn’t, women will continue to feel not only unwelcome, but threatened by some workplaces.She offers the case of women working as communications technicians in Quebec, installing phone and internet lines. At first these workers were reluctant to voice complaints to Dr.Messing and her team, but then revealed the dangerous working conditions and harassment they faced on the job – and in one case, sexual assault. If they complained, they were told to “get on with the job.” It was easier to quit than wait for things to change.”The attrition was tremendous, and that’s what I got so upset about,” Dr.Messing says. “Women were leaving in droves.The employer was totally uninterested.” Equally damaging was the fact that the government agency tasked with improving women’s participation in industry also didn’t seem to care about fixing the problem. “They didn’t want to hear anything because their message is, ‘Go for it! You can do it! Women can do anything!’ ” And that’s true, of course. Women can do anything, and they should be encouraged to join – and remain – in workplaces that have traditionally been closed to them. But only if those workplaces have the courage to listen to criticism, and change with the times. Article 3COVID-19 causing a ‘she-cession,’ impacting women in skilled tradesGismondi, Angela. Daily Commercial News; Markham, vol. 93, no. 117, 2020, pp.While women represent 48 per cent of the workforce in Canada, they represent only 28 per cent of the manufacturing labour force and that figure has been stagnant for 30 years, explained Barnet, who was appointed the first female chair in history of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) from 2016 to 2018 and is still with the organization. Prior to COVID, Barnet spent a lot of time talking about the labour shortage in the trades and encouraging young women to consider a career in science, technology/trades, engineering and math (STEM). In 2018 Barnet launched CME’s We Can Do It campaign, an initiative funded in part by the federal government to add 100,000 women to the manufacturing workforce over the next five years.Prior to COVID-19, manufacturing, construction and other trades were focused on recruiting women to the sector, but since the crisis hit that has become more difficult due to what economists are calling the she-cession. If we talked a couple of months ago, I would have had some really great news to share, said Rhonda Barnet, president and COO of AVIT Manufacturing, formerly Steelworks Design, an engineering and custom automation firm in Peterborough, Ont.She was the speaker at a recent Women Mean Business webinar held June 9.Right now were finishing our thoughts on the health crisis and looking to the economic crisis. What we are realizing in our country and around the world is that women have been greater impacted in this recession than men and economists are talking about this period as the she-cession.While women represent 48 per cent of the workforce in Canada, they represent only 28 per cent of the manufacturing labour force and that figure has been stagnant for 30 years, explained Barnet, who was appointed the first female chair in history of Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters (CME) from 2016 to 2018 and is still with the organization.Things were looking positive for the sector just prior to the pandemic with women representing 29.5 per cent of the labour pool.Thats really interesting because what we know statistically is if we can move the dial over 30 per cent things really start to rebalance themselves. We were so close to 30 per cent and then COVID happened, Barnet explained. Schools shuttered and daycares shuttered and guess what? Women were more disadvantaged in needing to leave their job to take care of their kids, to take of their seniors, to take care of all these people once again. That is why a lot of people are now calling this period the she-cession.By mid-May the representation of women in the sector in Canada dropped to 26.9 per cent, she added. Now were below historical levels on a representation basis, so weve got our work cut out for us. A lot of the work that Ive been doing is to really move the dial and make a difference.Prior to COVID, Barnet spent a lot of time talking about the labour shortage in the trades and encouraging young women to consider a career in science, technology/trades, engineering and math (STEM). When I talk about STEM I always include the trades, Barnet said. Women are grossly underrepresented in our country, in most countries, and we need to do something about it. If we want to fill the pipeline down the road with more technical women in manufacturing, we need to start really young. We need a lot of our work to focus on broadening the minds of young girls and women so they can see their way to successful careers in any trades and technology field like construction, like manufacturing.We are educating our young girls but we are not doing enough to create the linkages to these really interesting trades and technology sectors.In 2018 Barnet launched CME’s We Can Do It campaign, an initiative funded in part by the federal government to add 100,000 women to the manufacturing workforce over the next five years.”Amazingly in one-and-a-half years we added 40,000 net new jobs for women in the sector,” she said. “We have a government that is really promoting the value of women in the workplace. We have some really great programs running here in the country.” Her philosophy is, “if you can see me, you can be me.” She is big believer in mentorship and empowering women to get into leadership roles.”We have to get people into the ranks of our industries if we want them to be future leaders,” she noted. “Diversity breeds innovation, productivity, profitability. It’s hard work at first to bring together diverse views, opinions and thoughts but when we do it and we do it right we have an advantage…that’s what we need to build in our sector.”A lot of information and tools can be found on the CME website womeninmanufacturing.ca.”It has a manufacturing lens to it but also has a lens for male-dominated industry and making a difference around diversity and inclusion,” said Barnet. “It can be adopted by the construction industry and various other industries where women are grossly underrepresented.”It’s not just a women’s movement, men are a big factor in the change that needs to take place.””Women have been greater impacted in this recession than men and economists are talking about this period as the ‘she-cession,’ ” Rhonda Barnet AVIT Manufacturing. ARTICLE 4Women take on the trades: Newfoundland is leading the way in transforming workplaces that have long been exclusively male.Rollman, Hans. Briarpatch, vol. 41, no. 6, 2012. The economic boom that has hit Newfoundland and Labrador in recent years has received a lot of attention. The provincial government has played up recent economic growth, largely the result of a series of mining, offshore oil, and pending hydroelectric developments, but the boom has attracted its share of critics as well. Some argue the benefits–and jobs–are largely restricted to a small urban portion of the province, while others point out income inequality in Newfoundland is growing. Labour groups consistently emphasize that the share of provincial GDP going into corporate profits is the highest in the country, while the share going into workers’ salaries and wages is the lowest. Personal incomes are still below the national average.But one area where the province has been making a concerted effort to improve its record is in diversifying the provincial workforce, and increasing the presence of women in the professional trades. It’s a daunting challenge for a field in which women account for only 6.4 per cent of the workforce nationwide.Karen Walsh, executive director of the province’s Office to Advance Women Apprentices (OAWA), says it required acknowledgement that existing strategies weren’t working before real change could begin. The provincial government was pouring money into secondary school programs encouraging women to enter the trades, but while women’s enrolment in college-level trades programs increased, it wasn’t resulting in more women being hired.”When they came out of college they were really struggling to get jobs. They weren’t getting jobs, but their male colleagues were,” says Walsh.At this point, the provincial government decided to cast a wider net and ran ads seeking support from organizations that wanted to collaborate on supporting women in the trades.The Carpenters Union responded. The union sat down with government and eventually worked out a partnership, which became the Office to Advance Women Apprentices. The Office was housed and resourced within the Carpenters Millwrights College–a union-run training facility–and supported by funding from government. In addition to funding the Office itself, the provincial government also introduced a wage subsidy program for employers that hired women (covering 90 per cent of wages for first-year women apprentices, 80 per cent for second-year, and 60 per cent for third- and fourth-year). “Once industry saw that the government and the union were on board, they came on board,” explains Walsh.Walsh believes the tripartite nature of the partnership has proven fundamental to its success.”Government, industry, and unions have to be equal partners for this to take off. You can put on as many women’s courses as you like, but unless you have the major players all participating it’s not going to work.”Measuring successWalsh feels the initiatives are achieving results. Her office has a database of over 600 women apprentices, and has directly assisted over 200 women in getting jobs. The Office seizes opportunities as they arise. It proactively seeks out employers and tries to persuade them to hire women. Other times, employers seek them out, looking for workers or simply asking for advice around how to introduce women into their all-male workforce and make the adjustment as smooth as possible for everyone.Critical to the OAWA’s success, Walsh says, is the fact that services don’t cease as soon as a woman is employed. Once women are hired, the Office maintains an active role in the relationship to ensure problems don’t arise.”Once we get a job for a woman, we don’t say thank you and move on, but we monitor that relationship. We have constant emails and phone calls with the employers; we put on our hard hats and go into the fields; we interview them both to make sure they’re happy with each other, to make sure the apprentice is being treated fairly on the job. And the response back is that it’s working.”In addition to building an infrastructure to support women in the trades, the province has been requiring companies to develop diversity plans before allowing them to proceed with development projects in the province. In a system unique to Newfoundland and Labrador, major projects are governed by ‘special project orders’ negotiated between government, unions and companies that will be involved in the work. These SPOs must include diversity plans outlining how all parties will support gender equity and workforce diversity initiatives, and mandating minimum targets the companies and unions must achieve.Charlene Johnson is Minister of Child, Youth and Family Services, and also Minister Responsible for the Status of Women for the province. She’s adamant about the importance of requiring diversity.”You don’t come to government asking to undertake a project in this province unless you’ve got a solid diversity plan that you bring with you,” she declares firmly. “The premier is very, very passionate about that.”She credits much of the success of these initiatives to current Premier Kathy Dunderdale. Dunderdale held the portfolios of Minister of Natural Resources and Minister Responsible for the Status of Women when many of the agreements were negotiated.”She took every opportunity to push it and she wanted to ensure women availed of every opportunity that appeared. These diversity plans, they are a requirement and a condition of release for a project to occur. It’s part of our environmental process. People often think the environment is just the natural environment, but environment includes the social and human aspects,” Johnson asserts.Setting targetsHow are the targets set? Johnson says there’s a process of negotiation that occurs. The government analyzes Statistics Canada data, coupled with data it collects from the colleges, to determine levels of available women in the trades. The companies, in turn, must develop a plan to achieve diversity targets.The plans are quite detailed. The Women’s Employment Plan for Long Harbour sets a minimum of three per cent women apprentices in construction, 10 per cent women in design and engineering, and 25 per cent women overall. It also commits to mandatory gender sensitivity training for construction workers, zero tolerance for harassment, and requires adherence to the plan by subcontractors. The company also promises to financially support school-based initiatives to promote women in the trades, while the unions came up with the idea of paying 20 cents for every hour worked into a diversity fund to provide women apprentices with training scholarships.”Nobody wants to set targets that aren’t achievable, but we don’t want them too low,” Johnson says. “We don’t want them to stagnate. Of the six employment plans we’ve negotiated, all the targets we’ve set have been met. Part of the agreement involves having a monitoring plan. They [industry] have to submit a report to government every year and they have to meet with us annually to go over the results. Some of these companies meet with us regularly. There is teeth to this; they absolutely have to meet those targets.”Gus Doyle is president of the Carpenters Union, which has played a key role in supporting the OAWA. His union is the one that supplies many of the workers for the projects governed by these agreements, and he’s proud of the work they’ve been doing on improving diversity.”In Newfoundland, we’re ahead of the game,” he says.As the union supporting the OAWA, Doyle has worked hard to convince other unions of the need to support diversity. He said the response initially varied from union to union, but now most of the trade unions are on board and supportive. He thinks the diversity focus is here to stay.”This is going to be entrenched in the workforce … Once they [employers] see that [women] can do the same job as the guys next door, they have got no problem with it. They’re adjusting quite well.”Tempered enthusiasmSome of those on the ground are more skeptical about the pace of change. Rosie * is a welder in her early 30s who has worked at some of the megaprojects. She has mixed feelings about what’s been accomplished, and feels there is a lot more that can still be done.”I think that they’re dragging their heels,” she says, referring to all three parties. “It’s really exciting to see the shift that has already started. Are we there yet? I don’t think so. I think there’s a lot of ‘do as I say, not as I do’ still happening.”One thing she is enthusiastic about is the work of the OAWA, whose success she’s seen first-hand.”It should be in every province … They’ve done an amazing job of listening to the women on the ground. It’s that ear to the ground, right? And I’m glad they have that.”Rosie has worked on enough projects to know where some of the major gaps exist. The constant layoffs are a problem.”A lot of women are expected to give up permanent positions [outside the trades] … and know that it’s not going to be a permanent job. It might only be for six months. It might only be for two months. Some women who are single parents have commitments around taking care of their family. So it’s backbreaking for her to take an opportunity when she knows it’s good for her, but in a very bad way. There’s a real struggle there.”She suggests that rather than laying off workers every few months when work slows down, government and employers should use that time to help workers upgrade skills and promote further skills development. Rosie also questions the on-site support for women.”There is no support for women on these projects. None. There’s no support for the men either, but at least they have the numbers. A girl came to me and she said ‘you know I really wish we had a female shop steward. I wish there were a female unit to represent us, first of all, and to address the issues that we don’t feel comfortable talking to a man about.’ So if you did get harassed by somebody or if something has happened to you, safety issue or otherwise, that’s something you don’t feel comfortable talking about.”Diverse dangersRosie also says the sites need more supervision, by supervisors trained to intervene. She’s had some close calls on work sites, and speaks from firsthand experience.”When I was out there [on-site] last time … this guy exploded at me. I mean he drew back … it was violent. It was very violent. And I had no choice but to stand up to him because you simply can’t cower, you just can’t do that, on these sites you just can’t do it. That’s your whole reputation going out the window. I mean what can you do?” In the end, she feels holding her ground led to her being laid off, and there was little the union could do about it.It’s this sort of challenge that makes things particularly difficult for women seeking a place for themselves on work sites.”There’s a lot of women out there who won’t say anything because they can’t say anything. Because there’s nobody for them to say it to.”Working for changeBarriers still exist, but perhaps one of the benefits to the unique tripartite relationship that’s developed in Newfoundland and Labrador is that those barriers are increasingly identifiable.Doyle notes that, from the unions’ perspective, smaller contractors are a big challenge: small, tight-knit employers who have never had women on their workforce and never had to consider issues like separate washroom facilities, or equipment and gear sized for both women and men.Companies are still prone to hire based on experience, which often excludes many of the new women trying to enter the field and gain the experience to become journeypersons. A related problem is that women who received their training over the past few years and didn’t manage to gain employment are now finding themselves in need of retraining before they can avail themselves of new opportunities.Still, they’re determined to keep the pressure on. And, despite the challenges, women like Rosie are enthusiastic about continuing to surge forward in their chosen careers.”I love what I do. I love my job. I never question that. Sometimes it’s just really hard … so many things that seem to come out of an ice age movie happen in my career … and you’re just looking for somebody of your own kind … to know you’re not crazy. It can be hard sometimes.”ARTICLE 5Plenty of leadership opportunities for women in the trades.Papmehl, Anne. Maclean’s, vol. 131, no. 3, 2018 The industrial trades offer a wealth of career advantages to women–high pay, freedom, independence, career satisfaction, and opportunities for advancement. Unionized tradeswomen are also eligible for generous benefits and retirement pensions. Yet women make up only about three to five percent of workers in the construction trade industry, with an even lesser percentage in leadership roles.Industry association working toward inclusionWith the industry being so male-dominated, trade organizations like the United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipe Fitting Industry (UA Canada) are taking steps to promote diversity within the construction trades and to encourage more women to consider the trades as career options. “It can be a very fulfilling career with room for advancement,” says Alanna Marklund, the National Manager of Youth, Diversity and Indigenous Relations with UA Canada. “Once you’ve earned your Red Seal ticket, no one can take it away from you. You will always have something practical to fall back on. It’s a skill set you’ll never lose, and it provides opportunity to open many doors in your career.”Within the UA construction trades, women can become plumbers, pipefitters/steamfitters, sprinkler fitters, welders, instrumentation technicians, and refrigeration and air conditioning mechanics. As they gain experience, they can advance to leadership positions, such as trade school instructors, site supervisors, project managers, and quality control inspectors.Marklund–a Red Seal journeyman welder herself–believes more opportunities to participate in the decision-making process will help women advance in the trades. “The diverse perspectives and opinions that women bring to this process are very important not only for recruiting women, but also for retaining them and having them advance to senior leadership positions