At the 66th annual Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario Convention, delegates to Convention passed a resolution on the Ontario Building and Construction Tradeswomen and their support for our sisters and the work of OBCT.
Resolution # 8 Ontario Building and Construction Tradeswomen (OBCT) 66th Annual Convention of the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario Supporting Tradeswomen in Ontario __________________________________________________________________________ Whereas: the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario established the Ontario Building and Construction Tradeswomen (OBCT) Committee in 2019 as a province-wide coordinated effort to support, recruit and retain tradeswomen within the construction trades, and
Whereas: the OBCT has fielded hundreds of tradeswomen interested in becoming construction trades apprentices, and
Whereas: women continue to account for less than five per cent of the total skilled construction trades workforce in the province of Ontario, and
Whereas: there has been no formal coordinated or comprehensive effort to identify barriers and challenges related to recruiting and retaining tradeswomen into the Building Trades, and
Whereas: there is a need to continue to attract and retain a more diverse workforce to meet the needs of the industry, and
Whereas: much of the support and mentorship that is needed for newly-recruited and/or organized tradeswomen to be successful may be found locally within their unions from their fellow sisters and brothers, and
Whereas: the OBCT recognizes the success and positive impact for the many affiliated unions that have already formed local women’s committees, and
Therefore, be it Resolved: that all local affiliated Building Trades unions look to support and mentor women interested in joining the construction trades by connecting them with OBCT and by forming a women’s committee at the local and/or provincial level, and
Be it further Resolved: that all local affiliated Building Trades unions, where possible, send women as Delegates to Conferences and Conventions with training opportunities to ensure that the Building Trades reflect the membership’s diversity, and
Be it further Resolved: that all affiliated local unions of the Provincial Building and Construction Trades Council of Ontario track and share data with the Provincial Building Trades Council to help quantify efforts to recruit and retain women into the skilled trades.