{"id":60,"date":"2018-09-18T15:56:43","date_gmt":"2018-09-18T15:56:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.djcorprod.wpengine.com\/skilledmag\/?p=60"},"modified":"2018-09-24T12:39:01","modified_gmt":"2018-09-24T12:39:01","slug":"the-challenge-of-building-up-diversity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/2018\/09\/18\/the-challenge-of-building-up-diversity\/","title":{"rendered":"The challenge of building up diversity"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Apprentice<\/a>

Apprentice ironworkers Jess Ross, foreground, and Christian Garcia, install a ledger last spring while working on the Grant High School modernization project. A recent study commissioned by Metro found a need for improvement in the numbers of women and minority participation in the building industry. (Sam Tenney\/91ÊÓƵ file)<\/p><\/div>\n

A recent workforce study\u00a0 focusing on the construction industry produced results that show women and minorities still have much room for improvement in terms of participation.<\/p>\n

The Metro Portland Construction Career Pathways Project<\/a><\/strong> was commissioned by Metro<\/strong> and carried out by a team of industry professionals, academics, economists and many others over the past year. Results show that a concerted, collaborative, regionally organized effort is necessary to make substantial headway toward greater percentages of women and people of color participating in the trades.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of interest in increasing the number of women and people of color in construction, said report project manager Kelly Haines of Worksystems Inc.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe chart at the very end of the report is illustrative that it really is going to take everybody,\u201d she said. \u201cPublic agencies do play a role, and the culture needs to change among contractors and how people feel when they go to work every day. So it\u2019s going to be a collective effort at the regional level to really move the needle. There\u2019s not really a simple answer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tiffany Thompson is the director of advocacy for Oregon Tradeswomen Inc.<\/strong>, one of the report\u2019s collaborating organizations. Companies, unions and contractors should not be left to their own devices in this regard, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that it\u2019s better where there\u2019s a collective fund and a regional effort toward recruitment \u2013 rather than leaving it to the individual,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Workforce retention is also highlighted in the report, which states that a concerted effort must be made before women and minority tradespeople are able to operate in a workplace culture in which they do not feel discriminated against.<\/p>\n

The report, released earlier this month, shows that women account for just 4 percent of the roughly 23,000 workers in Oregon\u2019s construction industry. Of that 23,000, 20 percent are minorities \u2013 mostly Hispanics; blacks and Asians remain underrepresented in the trades, according to findings.<\/p>\n

The team examined 81 public-sector building projects scheduled for construction between 2017 and 2021 in order to determine the percentages of women and minorities working in the trades. Some of the projects have stated apprentice and workforce diversity goals \u2013 typically 20 percent apprentices, 25 percent minorities and 14 percent women. Those goals, if applied across all 81 projects, puts five-year workforce demand at 2,700 new apprentices, 3,400 minorities and 1,900 women.<\/p>\n

Portland\u2019s 2016 employment statistics, however, show that without improvement, the industry would fall short by 445 apprentices, 1,074 minorities and 1,416 women over the next five years.<\/p>\n

\"Bree<\/a>

Bree Smith, a journeyman ironworker with Local 29 and employee of Raimore Construction, guides a beam into place while erecting steel last year on the Knight Cancer Research Building. A recent Metro report on diversity in the building industry found that women and minorities tend to receive lesser training and mentorship opportunites. (Sam Tenney\/91ÊÓƵ file)<\/p><\/div>\n

When it comes to women in the industry nationally, U.S. Department of Labor<\/strong> figures show that the effects of the Great Recession continue to linger; the total number of women employed in all facets of construction in 2016 was 939,000. However, that is 140,000 fewer than in 2005. The number of women in \u201cproduction occupations\u201d is barely 200,000 nationally.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think one of the challenges,\u201d Thompson said, \u201cis figuring out in the longer term how to get a high enough percentage of women in the workforce to weather those things.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to recruiting people of color and women into the trades, one of the biggest barriers identified by the report is the lack of information available to youth about the many and varied career prospects in construction. It recommends an effort, likely beginning at the state level by the Bureau of Labor and Industries<\/strong> (BOLI<\/strong>), to inform educators and students within the public school system of the industry opportunities available to young people.<\/p>\n

Further, existing apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs should be better funded, preferably at the state level, so they can continue to grow, the report states.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo not know there\u2019s this alternative means you get into school debt,\u201d Haines said. \u201cWhat we\u2019re hearing from both contractors and apprenticeship programs is that they want better marketing. They want people to know about them.\u201d<\/p>\n

And when it comes to worker retention, the report notes that a history of overt racist and sexist policies in the trades has allowed persistence of jobsite cultures that adversely affect women and minorities. Further, women and minorities also tend to receive fewer training and mentorship opportunities, and the unsteady flow of work in construction often impacts them the hardest because they frequently lack of social support structures, according to the report.<\/p>\n

Despite the challenges involved, Thompson and others who crafted the study are hopeful that efforts now under way will lead to meaningful changes.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are all kinds of things that give me hope,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re seeing a shift in the industry, and our partners in the construction industry are reaching out to us and saying, \u2018We want more women.\u2019 And I think there\u2019s a lot more conversation in construction, not just because of the #MeToo movement, but in the industry in general about how do we retain women and how do we keep a respectful workplace.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A recent workforce study\u00a0 focusing on the construction industry produced results that show women and minorities still have much room for improvement in terms of participation. The Metro Portland Construction Career Pathways Project was commissioned by Metro and carried out by a team of industry professionals, academics, economists and many others over the past year. …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5138,"featured_media":167,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18615],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-60","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5138"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/djcoregon.com\/skilledmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}