Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and distinguished members of the committee.
My name is Teresa Weymouth and I'm the Unifor national skilled trades coordinator for Chrysler. I'm here to speak to you about women in skilled trades. I come to you with 26 years of experience as a journeyperson and an electrician, and 10 years as the national coordinator.
Employment and Social Development Canada has reported within the next decade 25% of skilled trades in Canada will be eligible to retire and that is over one million jobs. Sector councils are currently forecasting skilled shortages in mining, construction, petroleum, automotive, and in electricity. While discussing this impending loss to the workforce it must be addressed that while women make up 48% of the Canadian workforce, the Conference Board of Canada reports that typically less than 3% of all apprentices that are in construction, automotive, and industry trades are women. This clearly indicates that women are an untapped resource, poised to serve the future of both the skilled trades and on a greater scale the Canadian economy.
A few of the barriers for women in trades that we will look at, while also looking at Unifor's promising practices, are: sector awareness, language and terminology, and a lack of access to apprenticeships.
The first barrier I would like to address is the lack of sector awareness. It is important for women to seek out trades as a career option. It is one thing to not choose a pathway, it is another to not know the opportunity exists. Our country's superstructure is built by trades, but women are not a part of it. The question is, why? Unifor has addressed the under-representation, stereotypes, and lack of skilled knowledge through education. The development of the Unifor women's skilled trades and technology awareness program utilizes practical and hands-on workshops. We have delivered this program in various forms since 2001. We will go into more detail in promising practices.
The Unifor skilled trades department is in the process of doing a comprehensive gender, sector, and classification survey. This survey of skilled trades testimonials will be used as a form of outreach to students. The process of uncovering testimonials provides a link to potential mentors and provides a network to other trades.
Our trades are in the most technical areas of the country. When we lose jobs in this area, we lose skilled trades, which results in the loss of transfer of knowledge. This means there's no longer an opportunity for skilled tradespeople to mentor the apprenticeships.
The second barrier I would like to address is language and terminology. The term non-traditional implies that these jobs are not normally associated with women and reinforces the negative notion placed on these occupations. Adjusting terms goes a long way in changing work environments from exclusive to inclusive. To explore this notion of exclusive language, Unifor conducted a survey of 500 women to better understand what the phrase “women in non-traditional occupations” meant to them. Participant responses highlighted how language reinforces gender bias. For example, women associated this term with women doing men's work.
A literature review conducted for this survey indicated there is no internationally standardized definition of what constitutes a non-traditional occupation. StatsCan and the U.S. Department of Labor define a non-traditional occupation as a job in which one gender makes up less than 25% of the total number of workers in that occupation. Agencies in Saskatchewan and Quebec report that a non-traditional job is an occupation where 45% and 33% respectively of the workers are women.
This enforces the notion that the term “non-traditional job” is no longer a useful term in this time of change for women's roles in the workplace. To address this issue, Unifor has proactively presented our study findings on terminology and language to the Canadian Apprenticeship Forum, changed references of “non-traditional” in all skilled trade presentations, and in 2009, changed the designation “journeymen” and “journeywomen” to “journeyperson” in our collective agreements.
Finally, as to the lack of access to apprenticeship, we took a look at Unifor promising practices. We see more pre-apprenticeship programs readying women to opportunities in the trades. Our skilled trades department and master bargaining committees recognize the need for a collaborative, innovative strategy to build diversity in our skilled trades workforce.
Change often requires intervention and positive actions. Our union has participated in a number of promising programs to increase the participation of women in trades.
In 2009 one of our former unions to Unifor, the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, participated in a joint venture with the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology. The women in trades program, through the CEP humanity fund, educated over 20 aboriginal women in the Regina area on the basics of the construction industry.
In 2010 CAW, now Unifor, partnered with the Saugeen First Nation education department to promote skilled trades for indigenous women. A three-day program was offered at the CAW Family Education Centre. The women assembled and participated in workshops on the apprenticeship system, basics of electrical wiring, and health and safety. They also programmed robots and participated in mock interviews—