Building Inclusive Pathways: Inside ERA’s National Convening on Women in Construction Careers

Last year, ERA partnered with TradesFutures to create the Infrastructure Pathways Project (IPP): a national initiative to broaden access and strengthen inclusive pathways into construction careers. The Project brings together local building trades councils, government officials, and community organizations to bolster workforce development policies on major construction projects, creating real opportunities for workers and communities. Through hands-on technical assistance and implementation support, the project helps regions strengthen their local pipelines, meet workforce, industry, and procurement goals, and connect more communities to high-quality union careers. This work is central to ERA’s mission of gender equity. When more women gain access to high-paying, high-quality careers, we narrow the gender pay gap while strengthening local economies by tapping into a broader range of the communities’ workforce.

Planting seeds

Each regional team arrived in Washington, D.C. for IPP’s first in-person convening with a project proposal designed to build a more inclusive public construction workforce and left with new tools for making the financial case that keeps programs like these funded. The projects each address area-specific barriers to recruitment and retention.

• In Oregon and Washington states, partners are proposing a retention barriers study led in partnership with local academics to examine what leads women and other workers to leave apprenticeships and careers in the trades, with findings used to expand bi-state workforce tracking systems and design targeted interventions.

• In Milwaukee, WI, the regional proposal centers on an expanded childcare pilot. Seed funding would broaden eligibility, extend the pilot to additional unions and trades, and develop a childcare provider identification system. The longer-term goal is to include childcare contributions in collective bargaining agreements, making family-friendly support a structural feature of union work rather than a stopgap.

• In New York State, partners are proposing an expanded data and transportation initiative: growing the Syracuse Build First Source Hiring system, extending the Vehicles to Work transportation program, and building dedicated case management capacity to serve women, people of color, and local hire participants.

• In Philadelphia, PA, the regional project focuses on compliance and accountability. Partners are building an employer toolkit paired with the city’s Geographic and Economic Hiring Preferences accountability framework, including contractor scorecards and a public-facing dashboard, enforcing targeted hiring commitments on public projects.
• In Baltimore, MD partners are designing a local hire implementation framework for Project Labor Agreement projects, with the goal of creating the systems needed to recruit, place, and retain Baltimore residents, including women, in union construction careers.

Improving retention

Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT) brought the retention picture into sharp focus, pointing to why retaining tradeswomen is so critical for the success of the whole construction industry: lowering turnover results in lower training costs, and a safer, more skilled workforce. CWIT drew on national data to name what tradeswomen face: inconsistent hiring and lay off practices, underreported harassment, isolation on job sites, and childcare burdens that an industry built around a different workforce has not sufficiently addressed . These problems can be daunting for an individual stakeholder to address. CWIT outlined fast first steps to understanding regional retention barriers (like actually talking to current apprentices and tradespeople!), as well as tailored program solutions including mentorship, respectful worksite training, accountability, family-friendly supports, and pre-apprenticeship bridge programming.

Making the case with numbers

Social Finance delivered frameworks for building credible funding arguments through real examples showcasing programs serving workers facing significant employment barriers with strong returns for participants, employers, and the public alike. The presentation sparked dialogue among the cohort about collecting necessary data to make the case for further investment.

The attendees left the convening energized and equipped to move their projects forward. The convening was a prime example of how IPP is building a nationwide learning network, bringing together labor leaders, policymakers, and community advocates to share best practices, tackle common challenges, and highlight innovative approaches that can be replicated across the country.