Getting girls switched on to trades

Unless many more girls are encouraged into electrical trades, Australia has no chance of meeting its commitment to net zero by 2050, writes Sue Osborne.

Australia needs an additional 32,000 electricians by 2030 to work in the renewable energy sector, and another 85,000 by 2050, according to Jobs and Skills Australia.

And Electrical Trades Union (ETU) Affirmative Action Officer and electrician Raven Maris is determined to encourage more girls into this trade.

Not only is it necessary to save the climate, she says, but it also provides women with well-paid work and good job security.

Maris began her career in Canada as a chef. She got married, had children and became a stay-at-home mum.

When she emigrated to Australia 16 years ago, she decided to retrain as an electrician, becoming a “mature-age apprentice” with Sydney Trains and Transport for NSW.

She juggled her apprenticeship with being a mum of a four-year-old and a seven-year-old.

“I liked working with my hands as a chef and applying for an electrical apprenticeship seemed like the logical thing to do,” Maris says.

“In hospitality you’re overworked, underpaid, underappreciated. You deal with cranky customers on a constant basis. It’s not conducive to a good work life balance.”

Maris was not the only woman taking on an apprenticeship – she says Sydney Trains and Transport for NSW have a high intake of female apprentices.

“Sydney Trains and Transport for NSW are large service providers and government organisations, so they tend to hire a lot more females,” she says.

Electrician and ETU member Raven Maris.

Treated as equals

“There was a job that we did at Hornsby in the maintenance yard with an overhead wire modernisation project with seven women,” Maris says.

“We’re treated like equals because we have the trade and it’s one of the most empowering things as a female. You aren’t judged on your gender, you are judged by the quality of your work.

“There is a great deal of security in having a trade. You know you can take it anywhere and you can stop, raise a family, and then come back to it. The qualification never disappears once you’ve got it.”

Maris says her pay and conditions are superior compared with her hospitality role. Many trades considered traditionally female such as those in hospitality, retail and cleaning are often low paid and casualised.

Yet female students are still not considering the trades as a career in big enough numbers.

“There’s still a bit of a stigma,” Maris says. “There is the thought that you have to lose a significant portion of your femininity when you move into a trade.

“I still wear perfume and I put on mascara at work. There’s a certain level of my own femininity that I just refuse to set aside.”

Maris says she wanted to raise awareness among girls that the trades are available to them as strong career prospects.

“I think it’s just mostly around bringing that awareness – you don’t know what you don’t know, right? You don’t know that it’s even an option initially.”

Maris says it took her quite a while to realise this could be a career for her, but when she did it was an ‘a-ha’ moment.

“It’s just knowing that there are other women out there who already do it and thrive in that area,” she says. “There are female chippies. I’ve come across several female plumbers as well.”

Size doesn’t matter

Physical strength is no longer a barrier to women, with work health and safety rules preventing anyone, male or female, lifting more than 20 kilograms

“We have mechanical aids for everything these days,” Maris says. “No one should have to over-exert themselves or put themselves in any physical risk. So no, you don’t have to be big. I am only 5ft 4’’ (162.5 centimetres) and I weigh 50kg. I am not a large human being.”

Elected to her role with the ETU last year, the aim of her committee is to get more women into the trades.

“I would always encourage someone to never, ever be afraid to step outside their comfort zone and try something. It’s in those places where we feel most discomfort or fear or trepidation that we have our greatest growth,” Maris says.

“You know, over the four years of my apprenticeship I have come away with a qualification and confidence and new skills that I didn’t know were even possible for me.”