Projects allow local women to ply their trades
Brawley resident Maria Gradilla colorfully describes herself as the type of person who is always trying to better her situation in life by acquiring new job skills.
Her current endeavor involves working as an ironworker alongside crews of other “rodbusters” on the Interstate 8 Update Project, a huge departure from her past as a “quiet office worker.”
“Many people will say it’s too much work for a woman,” Gradilla said in Spanish. “But me and my friend are examples that it can be done.”
The friend Gradilla refers to is Calexico resident Laura Lizarraga, who also started working as an apprentice with the Ironworkers Local 229 around the same time as Gradilla about three years ago.
For the past several months the pair have been putting in long days laying rebar on the I-8 project, and despite their constant aches and pains, neither Gradilla nor Lizarraga plan to hang up their boots and hard hats in exchange for a quiet office interior any time soon.
What’s more, they both said they feel like they are leaving behind a personal and professional legacy that other local women — including their own respective young daughters — may one day point to as a source of inspiration.
The pair had first met one another at the San Diego-based union’s local hall about three years ago, when Gradilla drove some of her Center for Employment Training classmates to apply for apprenticeships as ironworkers.
Gradilla said she had no intention of applying herself, but was urged to do so by a union rep. Further motivation was provided by Lizarraga, who was at the hall applying for an ironworker apprenticeship as well.
Neither really thought they would get past the application and interview process, but did just that, and today find themselves on their sixth of eight semester as apprentices.
Lizarraga said she got her start as an ironworker apprentice installing solar panel arrays in Calipatria, where she spent about six months before moving on to San Diego for a hospital construction project.
Lizarraga said she truly enjoys her job, and still gets looks of astonishment when she explains to others what she does for a living.
“It’s very different from what one would expect to find a woman at work on,” Lizarraga said in Spanish.
Lizarraga and Gradilla are currently employed with San Diego-based CMC Rebar Inc. while working on the I-8 project, and do work no different from their male counterparts, they said.
Both said they are treated respectfully on the construction sites and can even expect male co-workers to run off anybody who is giving them a hard time on account of their gender.
Both also are appreciative of the encouragement and support they have received from supervisors and co-workers through the years, especially during times when they felt doubt about their own ability to carry on.
“I want to do it, I can do it and I will do it for my family,” Gradilla said.
In 2010, an estimated 9 percent of the construction industry’s workforce consisted of women, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. Yet, that figure represents an 81 percent increase in the number of women in the construction industry from 1985 to 2007, the department’s website stated.
Women such as Gradilla and Lizarraga are also taking home a prevailing wage, earning what Ironworkers Local 229 business agent James Alvernaz called a “homeowner’s salary.”
When the apprentices finish their eight semesters and become journeyman, they can expect their wages to rise from the approximate $50 an hour they currently earn to about $66 an hour, Alvernaz said.
In recent years, the union has seen an encouraging uptick in women interested in becoming apprentices, he said. The union also has been actively recruiting women apprentices and finding work for them in a growing number of jobs related to the ironworkers’ trade.
“There is a place for everybody now,” Alvernaz said. “It’s very diverse.”
In the past, whenever Lizarraga would pass the acres and acres of solar panel arrays that line Interstate 8 west of El Centro, she would proudly point out to her daughter that she had worked on their installation.
“Now I get to do that with the freeway itself,” Lizarraga said.
Considering her current position, Gradilla said that colleagues have often asked whether she would approve of her own daughter plying a skilled trade in the construction industry.
“No, she will be the one in charge of them,” she said.
Staff Writer Julio Morales can be reached at 760-337-3415 or at jmorales@ivpressonline.com