NEWS & PR

Women on Tap. The Pink Collar Revolution!

05 October 2005

Currently it is estimated that the country has a shortfall of 27,000 plumbers. This also applies to other professions such as plasterers and carpenters. It is also hard to believe, but there's still one business in Britain that's almost universally male. It's a business where women account for less than 1% of employees. A business where women are less than invisible: they're virtually absent.

This is the world of the manual trades - a world which has barely evolved as far as women's access is concerned. Law has changed; medicine has changed; universities have changed; but the manual trades have carried on like a big lumbering dinosaur – bizarre when you think that it's one of our major industries and women have hardly begun to make inroads.

However, according to Annabel Hands who is on the management committee of the group, Women and Manual Trades all this is about to change. In 10 years, she says, we won't even be discussing this issue. "Now is our moment of opportunity - the doors have never been open to women like they are right now, across the whole front of the manual trades. Things are going to turn around very quickly."
Why? Sadly, it isn't that women have woken up to an outdated male bastion and are hammering the door down: in fact, it's more like the reverse. Britain is in the throes of a skills shortage, with plumbers, electricians and building workers topping the list of most-sought-after tradespeople. At least 75% of plumbing businesses are having problems recruiting, and government figures say that along with the sub trades we are going to need 400,000 new builders and 17,000 more engineers over the next five years.

In response, £60m has been earmarked to persuade youngsters to consider a career in the manual trades - and girls are being targeted as much as boys. Elsewhere there are schemes to tempt women returners into plumbing and electrical courses and tradeswomen are touring schools in an attempt to provide role models.

In short, it's the Second World War all over again, (a time when in fact 70% of those women working on the war time effort were involved in skilled trades!) The nation is again under threat and is looking to its womenfolk to bale it out!

Working in a manual trade rather suits the female class of 2005, as it can provide a lot of flexibility and is good for the work-life balance. Working in these trades also tends to be many-faceted, ie running your own business, dealing with customers, doing your own paperwork. It's all a question of juggling, and women tend to be good at that.

And we should ask not only what the manual trades could do for women, but also what women could do for the manual trades. This, after all, is an industry with more than a hint of an image problem: have you never opened the door to a plumber plucked from Yellow Pages, with your heart in your mouth, and then watched the meter clock up as he scratched his head over your boiler, denounced every previous plumber who had ever tinkered with it and then announced you could either fork out for a new one or face a lifetime of cold showers?

Building Service Training based in Caerphilly, South Wales is currently running all women plumbing courses. BST is one of the UK’s largest independent accredited training centres delivering a wide range of plumbing, gas, electrical, water and oil related courses to approximately 500 students a year. When students were asked what they thought they could bring to the trade. “Reliability” said Rosinna, “The amount of times I’ve called out a tradesman and he’s not turned up. It really doesn’t take much to pick up the phone and let the customer know that you are running late or can’t make it,” she adds. Another student, Sarah, gave up her part time role at the Job Centre to re-train. When she qualifies she is looking to work on specific projects where men are not always welcome, ie safe houses for abused women.

Up in Bolton, Connaught Plc, a facilities management company who provide a range of property services, are actively recruiting women into their organisation. 20 year old Samantha Calvert began her career in Domestic Heating and Plumbing when she won an apprenticeship place at Bolton Community College. Her consistent good work has culminated in the college awarding her “Apprentice of the Year” for being an outstanding student. She enjoys working on site but says that tenants are often surprised when a woman turns up to fix a problem. Her colleague, Katrina Cunningham, 43 left her career in retail for a plumbing apprenticeship. She works alongside the Connaught team who are bringing housing stock in the Worcester area up to the Government’s Decent Homes standard. She is currently installing kitchens and bathrooms whilst studying for her NVQ.

Complaints

Recent statistics from the Office of Fair Trading showed that 100,000 complaints against plumbers, builders and electricians were received annually - that's 300 a day. And while no one is pretending there has never been a woman who would bend the rules of honesty, they're not known as the fairer sex for nothing!

Karen Procter, director of Women and Manual Trades said "Clients want to have people in their homes they can trust, and women are seen as trustworthy." Women often feel a lot more comfortable about opening the door to a woman, not to mention a lot less patronised when it comes to the diagnosis on what's wrong, or a description of what needs to be done.

There is, though, one more cobweb to blow away - neatly encapsulated in the words of one male plumber: "Women plumbers? It sounds a good idea, but there's heavy lifting involved, you know." But, as Annabel Hands says, the question isn't "Is a woman strong enough?" but "Is a man small enough?" "There's no doubt that, particularly in domestic plumbing, having small hands can help. I went to a job once where there was a leak at the back of a Victorian built-in cupboard. If you'd had to dismantle that to sort it out, it would have been half a day's work and a big bill. But the woman plumber I was with curled up like a cat and got in there. She had it fixed in 10 minutes."

Manchester Project

The Wai Yin Chinese Women Society has developed a ground-breaking workshop to deliver practical skills training to ethnic minority women, leading to NVQ level 2 in Maintenance Operations.

Wai Yin is based at Manchester Settlement, a community based centre for local projects, and provides construction based training broken down into individual units each lasting in the region of 12 weeks.

Tutor Sheila Standard, herself been a tradeswomen with over 14 years experience, explained the background to the project: “This project grew from a group of Chinese women who were keen to develop practical skills to provide a service to elderly and vulnerable people in their own community, who couldn’t deal confidently with mainstream contractors due to acute language barriers.” Sheila has developed courses that have much more appeal to women, injecting fun into study as well as social skills and confidence building exercises.

The project has overcome language barriers through the strong bond between the learners who helped each other to understand instruction and to learn key words in the trade. Learning portfolios are being built up using film to evidence each learner’s achievements and skills. The skills are underpinned by work experience gained on a voluntary basis, renovating the Manchester Settlement and doing up and fitting out the workshop and classroom used by the project.

Julia Dowd, Director of the Learning and Skills Council commented on the project; “The workshop provides significant benefit to the community as it’s not only helping to provide a valuable service to vulnerable local people but it also encourages and supports the women to overcome two major barriers in terms language and in entering a non traditional area of work.”