One Woman's Testimonial For NYC Program That Puts Women In Trades

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/10479

By Doug Cunningham

: “It’s really showed me that I can do a lot of things I didn’t know I could do before. It gave me the chance to earn a lot more money.”

Marge Keller is a graduate of Non-traditional Employment for Women, a program in New York City that helps women get into the construction trades. She had no union trades background before but is now in IBEW Local 3.

: “I did think that unions were a good thing that workers could organize to get good pay and good benefits.”

[pinqy]

1. Links

http://www.new-nyc.org">Nontraditional Employment for Women, NYC
Other organizations are National Association of Women in Construction and, more broadly, Work4Women (sponsored by Wider Opportunities for Women)

Too often only the white collar jobs such as doctor, lawyer, CEO etc are noted as women entering traditionally male job. But breaking down the barriers in the blue collar fields (and destroying the stereotypes of women in "male" blue collar careers is at least as important.

At the same time it's equally important to break down the barriers to men entering traditionally female occupations such as nurse, teacher, domestic workers etc. Gender segregation is the main cause of the infamous pay-gap.

[Omaha Steve]

2. My mom worked at the Martin Bomber plant during W.W.II in Bellevue, Ne.

She actually worked on the Enola Gay. They just didn't know at the time what that would mean after Hiroshima.