We'll Call You if We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction by Susan Eisenberg

Author:Susan Eisenberg [Eisenberg, Susan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History & Theory, Construction, Labor & Industrial Relations, Industries, Social Science, Political Science, Business & Economics, Women's Studies
ISBN: 9781501719783
Google: 0FJUDwAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 36913802
Publisher: ILR Press
Published: 1998-04-01T00:00:00+00:00

The first women who survived and succeeded in the construction industry did so with the assistance of men who had the courage to break ranks with a history of exclusion. These exceptional men, whom tradeswomen speak of with deep affection, often came in unlikely packages. For Nancy Mason’s first job as an apprentice electrician,

I WAS ASSIGNED TO BURKE ELECTRIC and the journeyman’s name was Patrick Costello. I went into the building and tried to find him. He actually met me and I said, “Have you seen Patrick Costello?” He said, “No,” but it was indeed him. He had me running around for a while. The two secretaries in an office across the hallway finally told me that it was indeed this guy I had met when I first got there in the morning.

He had me bend pipe the very first day, and I knew nothing about EMT or a bender. What’s interesting is that I did exactly what he showed me to do. We were stubbing in boxes in steel stud walls, so I was bending all the pipe connecting all these boxes. He came by and was watching me and he said, “You didn’t ream the pipe.”

I said, “I don’t know what you mean.”

He said, “You have to ream the pipe.”

I said, “Well, you didn’t show me that.” And he got all bright red in the face, started yelling at me.

And then he stopped and he goes, “You don’t understand what reaming the pipe means?”

I said, “No, I’ve never even seen a piece of EMT until today, and you just showed me how to bend it. I cut them the way you showed me to cut them and I’ve been putting them in.”

He said, “You have to ream the pipe or else you’ll tear the wire.”

I said, “Well, do I have to take them all apart?”

He said, “Well, yeah.”

And so I said, “It wasn’t my mistake.”

He goes, “I know that. But you’re going to have to take it all apart anyway.” I remember that very clearly. He’s a currently retired member, and every July 2, just like it was July of 1979, he sends me an anniversary card as my first-day first-ever journeyman wireman. We had our moments, but he was actually a really neat guy and he really did teach me a lot. He—even from early on—told me that I was smart and that I could figure things out. I got a lot of positive reinforcement about how I would probably be able to do okay. I didn’t experience a lot of harassment that some of the other women who I was in contact with were experiencing at the same time. I experienced that later, and I think that I survived a lot of my first year because I was with him a great deal.

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