Gabrielle Beamer said she didn’t meet another woman in the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LiUNA) until six months into her apprenticeship. Stormirae Conas, who recently reached journey level with Laborers Local 737, said she didn’t see another woman out on job sites at the first few companies she worked for.
Now a committee at Laborers Local 737 called Women@Work is helping women members find each other.
“We’ve come a long way as women in trades, but no matter what, I feel like you’re always going to be questioned whether you can do the job well enough or not. We have to prove ourselves five times more than a man on the job,” journey-level laborer Christine Reed told the Labor Press. “To be able to talk about that and just kind of release that in a safe space feels really good.”
Beamer, an instructor at the Oregon & Southern Idaho Laborers-Employers Training Trust, has been running the Women@Work committee for more than two years. The group meets monthly and gives women an avenue to make friends in the union and offers a space for support and advice when women face issues on the job.
“It’s about building community. It’s about supporting one another and just understanding what it’s like to have a hard day’s work,” Beamer said. “Just having that space to be able to communicate with someone who really understands what you could be going through on a job site is really helpful.”
At a the March 13 meeting of Women@Work, more than a dozen participants shared news on upcoming events for the laborers union and tradeswomen generally. They also discussed job site issues faced by members and which employers handled issues well. And they congratulated union sisters on recent accomplishments.
The committee was started by Local 737 member Lori Baumann after she attended Tradeswomen Build Nations conferences and saw other trades growing their female membership.
Beamer joined the Laborers in 2016, worked up through her apprenticeship, and quickly became a lead and a foreman specializing in concrete. When Beamer started working at the training center as an instructor three years ago, Jodi Guetzloe Parker was leading the Women@Work group but was nearing retirement and looking for someone to take over.
“I was always taught that any trades program, especially the laborers, is very male-dominated, and you won’t really meet women on job sites,” said Beamer, whose father is a laborer. “So when I first met Jodi, I was like, ‘Holy cow, there’s another woman that works here too?’”
Beamer said she didn’t want to see the group fade away.
“I grabbed it by the reins and have been really trying to grow it,” Beamer said.
The group has more than doubled in size, with 10 to 15 women attending the monthly meetings.
Women@Work has held donation drives and assembled care kits for Blanchet House and Rose Haven, two Portland nonprofits serving people facing homelessness, and volunteered to replace siding on the house of an older woman who was at risk of losing her home. The group has also done purely fun social events, like a skate night at Oaks Park.
When Conas became an apprentice, she had just moved to the area and didn’t have any friends or family nearby.
“I feel like the union, and then the Women@Work, had a really big impact on being comfortable in a new place,” Conas said.
Conas first attended a group meeting when Beamer encouraged her to stay after class and take part in the group. That first experience was fulfilling and comfortable, Conas said.
Women@Work meets the second Thursday of every month from 6 to 7 p.m., with in-person and virtual options. For more information, visit womenworklocal737.org.
