A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Women make up less than 5% of the construction trades - professions such as carpenter, electrician and plumber. President Trump wants to grow the industry, but there are fears women could be further sidelined. Some labor unions say they will not let that happen. Here's NPR's Andrea Hsu.
ANDREA HSU, BYLINE: At the plumbers union training center in Chicago, first-year apprentices in safety goggles gather around an instructor. One at a time, they step up to saw off a piece of white plastic piping.
SARAH KIRCOS: Looks like they're practicing cutting PVC, what they need to do to prep it, the glue.
HSU: Sarah Kircos (ph) has been through this training. She's now a third-year apprentice and has two more years to go before becoming a full-fledged union plumber, a $60-an-hour job with excellent benefits. Already, she's earning half that. It's proving to be a good career, she says, but not one that a lot of other women are flocking to.
KIRCOS: There's always a breath of fresh air when you see another lady there.
HSU: The plumbers union has been trying to recruit more women, starting with high schoolers. They're putting women in leadership roles and creating opportunities for women to network and support each other. Kircos is confident there will be plenty of work now that she knows how to do things like...
KIRCOS: Water tapping. So we're replacing all the lead pipes in Chicago. We're trying to. We're starting to.
HSU: And the union says there's value to having women on the job. Sandro D'Andrea is an instructor here. He's been a plumber for 25 years.
SANDRO D’ANDREA: I feel they're more detail-minded than the men.
HSU: He says some of the women outwork the men, and they bring a different vibe.
D’ANDREA: Actually, the women bring a sense of calm to the classroom.
HSU: Labor advocates credit the government with getting women into construction in the first place. For more than four decades, the Labor Department had a goal for federal contractors and subcontractors.
DONNA LENHOFF: Six point nine percent of construction hours were supposed to be worked by women.
HSU: That's former Labor Department attorney Donna Lenhoff. She says the 6.9% was never a quota, but it forced companies to make good-faith efforts to bring women into the trades.
LENHOFF: These things have an impact on people and certainly on women who thought, OK, now the door is open.
HSU: For 60 years, an executive order signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson also compelled federal contractors to take proactive steps to ensure they weren't discriminating against anyone. But now under President Trump?
LENHOFF: It's gone, so federal contractors no longer have any special obligations.
HSU: Lenhoff says that could spell devastation for women in construction, given how many builders get federal dollars. In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai responded, writing, instead of DEI boondoggles that accomplish nothing, the Trump administration is laying the groundwork for Americans of all backgrounds to help build our next golden age. Now, already, one giant union has responded to Trump's policies targeting identity-based initiatives. The United Brotherhood of Carpenters ended its Sisters in the Brotherhood program, which had supported women carpenters for decades. But other unions say they're forging ahead. Their resolve was on display at a conference of more than 5,000 tradeswomen this fall.
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THE TEMPTATIONS: (Singing) Talkin' 'bout my girl. My girl.
HSU: From the opening reception through every panel, the sentiment was strength in numbers. Jessica Bruneau traveled in from Minnesota, where she maintains and repairs all kinds of boilers.
JESSICA BRUNEAU: Big powerhouse boilers, garbage burners, paper mills.
HSU: There are not a lot of female boilermakers out there, but Bruneau thinks there could be more. She says not only do women excel at tasks like welding. Some women have a size advantage.
BRUNEAU: The jobs you go on, it's like, you got to have somebody that's smaller to be able to fit into that pipe or that tube, and you look at all the guys, and you're like, all right, well, I'm going in there.
HSU: She's 5'2", by the way. The painters union has a goal to be 20% women by 2029. They're president, Jimmy Williams, says a tax on DEI won't change that.
JIMMY WILLIAMS: Equity is what we do as a labor union. It doesn't matter if you're a woman or if you're a male. You get paid the same.
HSU: And he says, plenty of companies are on board, too.
WILLIAMS: Especially in commercial paint and wall covering, drywall finishing, those employers legitimately have been trying to increase the number of women 'cause they see that there is an added value here. They're extremely talented.
HSU: Now, no one at the conference spoke publicly about President Trump, how his policies or his views about organized labor might affect their future. But Sean McGarvey came close. He's president of North America's Building Trades Unions.
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SEAN MCGARVEY: This is more than just a project. These are fights about our values - values like diversity, equity, inclusion and solidarity.
HSU: His message was, let's keep opening doors.
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MCGARVEY: We don't give what they're saying and doing in Washington. We are staying on the course we're on.
HSU: Plenty of cheers for that.
Andrea Hsu, NPR, News Chicago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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