Thanks, Vennicia, for that introduction.
Vennicia has been a pal for years. Once I was Governor, Vennicia would make sure you discover me at each constructing trades occasion to ensure I knew concerning the Rhode Island Girls within the Trades.
In Rhode Island, they knew me because the Constructing Trades Governor. Now, I hope you’ll know me because the Constructing Trades Secretary.
I’ve been to so many constructing trades occasions, and usually I look out to a sea of males. However at this time is completely different. It’s so thrilling to see a sea of girls.
I would like you to understand how impressed I’m by your willpower, your persistence, your stick-to-itiveness, and your bravery to enter a subject that’s at all times been dominated by males.
Final week, I had an opportunity go to to the Chicago Girls in Trades. The place are the ladies from Chicago Girls in Trades? I would like you to know I introduced my bandana all the best way to Las Vegas.
It was wonderful to listen to your tales. Like all of you, these are ladies who love doing their jobs – ironworkers, plumbers, carpenters. They take delight of their work. They’ve obtained the abilities, they usually’ve obtained the drive. They’re working within the trades for a similar causes as males do: to higher themselves, discover stability, make an honest pay, and deal with their households.
The place is Jazz Allen? Jazz confirmed me round Chicago Girls in Trades throughout my go to. Jazz was a juvenile defendant who obtained a second probability and a chance to higher her life due to Chicago Girls in Trades, which gave her the instruments and coaching she wanted to be a profitable ironworker.
Jazz instructed me how a lot she liked her job. She’s additionally fairly nice at it. However she and her fellow Chicago Girls in Trades additionally instructed me concerning the obstacles they’ve confronted.
A few of these tales are outrageous. They sound like they’re straight out of the Nineteen Sixties, not the 2020s. They’re the identical tales I’ve been listening to for years and I’m positive they’re all too acquainted to all of you.
I heard from a third-year apprentice who mentioned, “I wish to work. I’m a plumber. I wish to set up pipe and really study.” She’s decided, proficient and succesful. However she instructed me that too typically, when the time comes, the boss will choose the first-year male apprentice to every him a brand new talent and ask her to “push the broom” or do supplies arrange. You may’t study the trades pushing the broom.
And the tales go on.
On too many job websites, ladies don’t have their very own restrooms, which might by no means fly in some other office.
Within the uncommon instances the place separate restrooms are offered, the ladies’s rooms are positioned additional away than the lads’s. I’ve heard tales of port-a-potties that don’t have tops and supervisors timing ladies to see how lengthy they take earlier than getting again to work.
I’ve additionally heard about ladies being directed to carry out unsafe duties that violate security protocols. Job websites don’t have gear like harnesses or helmets that match ladies.
I’ve heard tales of male coworkers posting inappropriate photos on the sport field and calling their feminine coworkers “cupcake” as a substitute of utilizing their actual names.
Tales that girls get left behind at break time just because the lads didn’t inform them.
And if males make errors on the job, they get laughed at or made enjoyable of. However ladies? I’ve heard generally they get fired.
Too typically, ladies are being assigned fewer hours than the lads on the roles. Generally, they get referred to as for a job solely in any case the lads have been referred to as. One of many causes it’s so necessary to get extra ladies within the trades is as a result of women and men make roughly the identical hourly wage. However that wage parity is pointless if ladies aren’t getting any hours.
And a scarcity of onsite childcare implies that ladies have a tough time attending to their jobs on time or staying late to gather extra time. With out paid depart insurance policies, working mothers get caught making troublesome selections. All of us mothers know if our youngsters even appear like they’re desirous about having a fever, the childcare web site received’t take them.
It’s 2022 – it’s time to say that is not acceptable. Girls don’t wish to take care of the BS. They only wish to do their jobs.
As Secretary of Commerce, my focus is constructing the long-term competitiveness of the USA. However right here’s the fact: if we don’t spend money on ladies’s success within the financial system, we’re not going to have the ability to compete.
Once I was Governor, I began a welding coaching program for girls in Rhode Island. We needed to as a result of Electrical Boat – the corporate that builds our nation’s assault submarines – wanted to rent 500 welders a yr. With this system, we helped get ladies skilled after which we helped them get positioned at Electrical Boat.
Nicely guess what? I’ve heard from Electrical Boat that the ladies who’ve come via these applications are a number of the finest, hardest working, most detail-oriented staff they’ve ever had.
My mom at all times mentioned, “If you wish to get one thing performed, ask a busy lady.” From speaking to so a lot of you, and from seeing the success we’ve had at Electrical Boat, it’s clear ladies within the trades know how you can get the job performed.
And at this time, we’re in a state of affairs with loads of new building taking place, and there aren’t sufficient skilled tradespeople to satisfy the demand. It’s the proper time to coach extra ladies.
I personally consider – and I do know Sean McGarvey does too – that the world can be a significantly better place if we had extra ladies in cost—and that’s true for all the things from authorities places of work to company boardrooms and it’s very true for job websites all through the nation.
Jobs within the trades pay—on common—twice as a lot as minimal wage jobs like hospitality or care work or retail. They’re a number of the highest-paying jobs you will get with no faculty diploma.
However despite the fact that ladies account for greater than half of the U.S. inhabitants, they make up lower than 10 p.c of jobs within the trades. In some expertise, it’s solely 2 to three p.c.
This isn’t proper and it isn’t sustainable. It’s time for a change.
You all have been tilling the soil for a very long time. Teams like Chicago Girls in Trades have been coaching ladies for greater than three a long time.
And now, we now have a once-in-a-generation alternative to construct on the work you’ve already performed. Collectively, we’re going to place the pedal to the metallic and produce extra ladies into the trades than ever earlier than.
The reason being as a result of due to President Biden’s management, we’re investing greater than a trillion {dollars} to strengthen America within the subsequent 5 to 10 years.
As Commerce Secretary, I’m in command of $100 billion of that funding: $50 billion from the CHIPS and Science Act to spice up home semiconductor manufacturing and $50 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Regulation to convey high-speed web to each American.
We will create as much as 200,000 building jobs with that cash, good jobs laying fiber and constructing fabs which have the potential to vary lives, provide family-sustaining advantages, and result in long-term profession pathways. However everybody ought to have entry to those jobs. And which means ladies and folks of shade too.
By leveraging the funds we now have, we are able to spark a change that can spur development alternatives for girls in an trade that doesn’t at all times make it straightforward.
And there’s no higher time to do it as a result of we now have a scarcity of skilled tradespeople and we received’t meet the necessity except we recruit, prepare, and retain extra ladies.
Now, I do know you’ve heard this all earlier than. I do know you’re uninterested in the lip service.
However on the Division of Commerce, we’re all in on this.
So is Marty Walsh on the Division of Labor.
So is Pete Buttigieg on the Division of Transportation.
So is my boss, President Biden.
And so are Sean McGarvey, Liz Shuler, and Terry O’Sullivan.
There is not any means the Division of Commerce is investing billions of taxpayer {dollars} in model new infrastructure tasks and never having these jobs go to individuals who appear like all of America.
At the moment, I’m asserting our new Million Girls in Building initiative.
Proper now, there are about a million ladies working within the building trade. I’m right here to inform you that collectively we’re going to double that over the subsequent decade to create alternative for one more million ladies.
Don’t you assume that if contractors and firms are utilizing taxpayer cash, they need to do it with an inclusive workforce?
Wouldn’t it’s nice if each multibillion-dollar semiconductor fab had a gold-standard venture labor settlement?
What if each PLA contractor disclosed – regularly – what number of hours ladies have labored?
Don’t you assume that manufacturing firms and enormous contractors ought to fund pre-apprenticeship initiatives just like the one at Chicago Girls in Trades?
Shouldn’t each job web site have each males’s and ladies’s restrooms?
Lots of the semiconductor firms that can obtain funds from the Commerce Division will arrange multi-billion, multi-year tasks. What if they’d onsite childcare?
Shouldn’t each facility have a foreman – or forewoman – targeted on imposing anti-harassment and anti-discrimination?
And the way about getting ladies the coaching and gear they must be secure and profitable?
That is our time – that is our probability – to lastly make this a actuality. And these are steps that may assist guarantee our success.
Now, NABTU and its companions have performed super work advocating for these kinds of insurance policies for years.
We want you to stick with it to make sure ladies are getting the proper coaching, the proper gear, and – most significantly – the alternatives to show themselves on the job.
And we’d like you to be sure that union coaching and apprenticeship programs embrace anti-harassment and anti-discrimination coaching for all staff.
To the ladies right here – all of you – we’d like you to maintain doing what you’re doing. Keep it up, work laborious, get the coaching you want, and advocate for yourselves.
I actually consider that collectively, we are able to do that.
We are able to construct a brand new American workforce that lastly – lastly – faucets into the limitless potential of girls.
Our success is determined by it.
If we do that proper, everybody will profit – staff, ladies, folks of shade, unions, contractors, companies, and America as a complete.
So, thanks once more for the work you do day by day.
Thanks for advocating for girls within the trades.
Thanks for being an inspiration to me.
And thanks for main the best way for the ladies who come behind you.
It’s an honor to be on this battle alongside you.