THUNDER BAY— The LiUNA Local 607 held an open house workshop on Saturday aimed at introducing more people, especially women, into the trades.
The hands-on workshop featured cement mixing, a brick-and-mortar station, a stick welding station and an equipment station.
The equipment station gave participants the chance to run a rough terrain forklift, skid-steers with the capacity of moving dirt or moving pallets using forks and a rotating rough terrain forklift with a 360-degree rotating cab — the first in the north in terms of what contractors could use in the future, according to the training centre.
Nyssa Parr, a level one concrete finisher with the union at LiUNA, said out of all of the stations, her favourite was welding.
“In high school, I wanted to be a welder. So, when I heard that there was a welding thing, I (was) like, ‘Oh heck yeah, I get to do it again. Let’s go,’” said Parr.
“But I just went on the skid-steer too and it was pretty fun using it. It’s a lot easier than I thought it would be.”
Parr was encouraged to attend the workshop after seeing a post for the event showing how it would explore more than concrete work and as a women’s event, offer the chance to meet more women and get to know everyone in the trades.
“When I first joined the union, I was interested in trying to do as many trades as I possibly can,” said Parr, “so at a job site, I could A, be more useful and possibly get paid more doing it, and also do a little side hustle because everyone needs money nowadays.”
She said it was a nice little event and enjoyed it in the morning.
Bryan Nieweglowski, the LiUNA Local 607’s training centre’s training manager, said they’re trying to break the apprehension and get more people involved in looking at the trades as a career opportunity since they might not have been shown it was one in school or thought it was something they could do.
“Right now, in our schools, it’s getting hard to get recruitment for our locals in the sense of the construction industry,” said Nieweglowski.
“With people out of high school coming to us. Looking at us as (an) employment opportunity… we are an option there (for) a good career. (A) good paying career with the pension and benefits is something that’s still a goal that could be attainable with a worker.”
Nieweglowski explained that Liuna was also more focused on women entering the trades as it is a demographic they’re not seeing in recruitment that come to their doors looking for work.
“If you want to get the work done and get it done well, you get a woman to do it is the expression. So that’s what we’re trying to show more women in coming here. To kind of break the ice to show, ‘hey, you might be able to do this work if you like what you’re trying,” said Nieweglowski.
While providing welding and masonry, Nieweglowski said they’re doing more exposure in other trades as well.
With this exposure, Nieweglowski said they’re also trying to recruit for their next residential construction worker course, which will have two cohorts and a women-focused course on building a house with LiUNA.
“People are here asking about that course because they know we’re focused on that too… Talking to us, but seeing what else our local and our union has in the work we offer,” said Nieweglowski.
As of 10:20 a.m., 50 women had shown up for the workshop.
He said that by having a more relaxed pace of people coming at their own discretion, LiUNA could get a lot more hands-on with the workstations rather than having 50 people show up at the same time.
While groups of 10 in each station previously rotated only to get two to three minutes with them, he explained that it worked better and they could get 20 minutes with a person at the stations.
“It gives them a little more relaxed pace to try longer than just pushing them through,” said Nieweglowski.
