Estado de Minas
Marta Vieira
February 10, 2011
Women have started to undermine the masculine character of construction sites in rural parts of Minas Gerais, taking advantage of the shortage of manpower that has reached critical levels in the sector. After gaining training course places in Belo Horizonte, where many had their first work experience in a field until now reserved for men, women now make up more than half of students in vocational training classes, and are working on the construction of buildings and industrial plants in municipalities such as Itabira, in the central part of the state, as well as in Betim, Nova Lima, Pedro Leopoldo, Sabará, Esmeraldas and Ribeirão das Neves in Greater Belo Horizonte.
From carpenters to painters and electricians, female students account for over 70% of the almost 3,000 workers trained under the Planseq construction sector training plan underway around Belo Horizonte, administered at the Senai-MG industrial education schools. Itabira provides the most striking example of how members of the so-called “weaker sex” are breaking down barriers in construction. Here, women now make up 10% of the workers that Vale S/A’s subcontractors have recruited from the local Senai-MG school.
On behalf of Vale, the institution has trained 1,000 people to work on the construction of an ore processing plant as part of the Conceição Itabiritos project. Of the 350 people hired by Vale’s service providers, 35 are women. They now make up the majority of students in the Job Market Preparation Program’s courses, which are run by the mining company to supply workers for its expansion projects in Raposos, Itabirito, Nova Lima and Rio Acima.
Márcia Jatobá, Vale’s human resources general manager in Minas Gerais, notes that women’s presence has for some time been growing in areas such as industrial maintenance and machine operation. The company plans to train 6,500 workers over the next two years. “Women are changing the paradigm and showing they are competent to work in these areas that until now have been dominated by men,” she says.
Trend
According to Edmar Alcântara, a vocational training manager at Senai-MG, women’s participation is now a trend in construction, although the underlying cause of this winning of positions is still due to a shortage of workers. Another detail that should not be ignored is the fact that the vacancies on Planseq courses are directed at beneficiaries of the Bolsa-Família welfare program, which has a large share of women. “Society itself must understand that these workers are here to stay,” he argues.
In Itabira, one of the companies that has broken down resistance to having female workers is RN Pintura e Acabamento, established one year ago by friends Sabrina Najar and Gersildes Reis Machado, two women who worked in the industry themselves and encountered the same prejudice. They started to only hire female workers, and with this new recruitment policy, RN saw its costs fall by 35%, with wastage of materials eliminated. “Women are meticulous, they do a better finished job, they perform tasks in less time and they are more committed to their work,” says Najar.
Change of area
Eber Penna Jácome, the owner of Prisma Edificações, one of the largest companies in Itabira, sums up the problem in the construction sector. “When the company loses an employee, it takes 60 to 90 days to fill the place again. Until 2009, we had our pick of various candidates,” he says. On Vale’s construction projects, women are no longer a novelty along the one-kilometer route inside Conceição Mine. Juliana Rodrigues dos Santos, 22, exchanged her uncertain life as a daily cleaner working in the informal sector for a job as an assistant rigger.
Unemployed, Rosilane Oliveira Costa, 28, gained her first work opportunity after two and a half years of fruitlessly looking for a job in retail and the services sector. Rosilane and Juliana did a training course at Senai, in the hope of acquiring experience in a more promising area in the municipality. “Even with a basic IT course, I looked for work in retail and it was still hard to find an opportunity,” says Juliana. “Little by little, women are arriving there [in construction]. When I say I’m a carpenter, many people don’t believe me,” says Rosilane.