Apprentices Speak Out

Revision with unchanged content. The last few decades of the twentieth century were a period of tremendous change in organized labor and apprenticeship programs in the United States. Going into the twenty-first century, skilled trade union apprenticeship pro­grams are in a change, coping with decline in union membership and pressure to open their ranks to under represented groups. Insuring inclusion of women and minorities in registered apprenticeship has been an acknow­ledged problem among policy makers. Failure to improve meaningful, representative access in apprenticeship programs, particularly to women, was cause for the author to perform research study. The research study was to investigate the experiences of five women who entered into a skilled trade apprenticeship program that has been predominantly male oriented. The in­vestigation examined three components of the apprenticeship program: application and entry, on-the-job training and working relationships with the journey person. The significance of the study was to identify:- What barriers do women describe as restrictive to becoming an accomplished apprentice in a skilled trades program?- Do women experience discrimination as an ap­prentice?- Do women experience inappropriate sexual bias as an apprentice?- What are the expectations of women entering into an apprenticeship?