The National Task Force on Tradeswomen’s Issues has developed over the last forty years through organizing and activism on the part of tradeswomen and their allies. In 1964 for the first time Title VII of the Civil Rights Act declared that it was illegal to discriminate in employment (e.g. recruitment, hiring, promotion, firing) based on race, color, religion, national origin, and sex. In 1968 Presidential Executive Order 11246 barred sex discrimination in employment by companies with federal contracts. These laws created a system for women wanting to join the construction industry to file complaints and lawsuits against contractors and unions. The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) and the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) were established to enforce the laws and regulations.

But the government agencies were not enforcing the laws for women wanting to enter the construction trades and other well-paying skilled blue-collar jobs held by men. In the mid-1970s tradeswomen and women’s legal advocacy organizations brought a lawsuit against the U. S. Department of Labor. Settled in 1978, the agreement established the goal for women of 6.9 percent of hours worked on federal construction projects and a 23 percent goal for female apprentices, as well as harassment-free worksites; goals and guidelines that have been in place but not achieved to this day.

Following in the footsteps of black men, women lined up to apply for skilled trades apprenticeship programs and they pursued a wide range of strategies: legal, program, and organizing. They filed complaints of discrimination with federal, state, and local agencies and they went to court. They won access to training and jobs and expanded the definition of sexual harassment to include a hostile work environment that the vast majority of tradeswomen faced on a daily basis. Harassment included physical and psychological injury and in some cases death. But affirmative action came under political attack; enforcement budgets were cut and programs ended.

For support and advocacy, tradeswomen and advocates formed local organizations from Tradeswomen Inc. in California to Chicago Women in Trades in Illinois to Nontraditional Employment for Women in New York. Tradeswomen marched in parades, testified at hearings, built pre-apprenticeship training programs, attended union meetings, ran for elected office, and formed coalitions with lawyers, people of color, and LGBTQ communities. They were able to help establish training programs with grants from government agencies and foundations. They wrote books, started journals and newsletters, produced calendars and artwork, participated in research projects, and began to blog and use all facets of the internet.

As isolated workers on all-male crews, tradeswomen came together for meetings and conferences to share stories, problems, and solutions. Tradeswomen, Inc hosted the first national conference in 1983. Tradeswomen began to see the need for a national focus on public policy, legal strategy, and advocacy. Tradeswomen organizations across the country formed the national Tradeswomen’s Network in 1990 to address issues on the national level, but there was little funding or organizational structure. The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) convened the first international union women’s conference in 1997 which developed recommendations for within the IBEW. The first union women’s building trades conference that received backing from a State Building Trades Council was convened in 2002, continuing annually in California until 2010. Tradeswomen Now and Tomorrow (TNT) was formed at the same time to take up the national issues, but again the tradeswomen organizations had little structure or support.

The California Building Trades Conference became a national tradeswomen conference in 2011, with support from tradeswomen organizations, individual unions, and the North America’s Building Trades Unions (NABTU). The Women Build Nations Conference continues today, hosting over 2,000 tradeswomen in Seattle in 2018. In addition to workshops on topics such as leadership, legal rights, and work-family balance, the conferences contained programs on how to recruit and train a diverse workforce, as well as policy forums on current issues facing tradeswomen and the larger building trades labor movement.

Despite these efforts, women remained 3 percent of the construction trades workforce and the number of women and men in the trades declined dramatically with the onset of the 2008 recession.

*This brief history is taken from the work of Molly Martin and Brigid O’Farrell on The Tradeswomen History Media Guide and Presentation. Resource links below.