Poorly fitting safety gear is dangerous, and a fact of life for women in construction.
Her high-visibility vest hung off her shoulders. Empty nubs of fabric sat at the fingertips of oversized gloves. When she bought special no-grip shoes for paving asphalt, the smallest size didn’t fit her even when she wore two pairs of socks. “It’s like wearing clown shoes,” Hughf said.
A November report by the Canadian Standards Association found 92 per cent of about 500 women construction workers surveyed reported one or more problems with personal protective equipment. Even when workers do find gear that fits, Hughf said, they often pay hundreds of dollars because their employers won’t provide it. In other cases, they improve what’s available, using safety pins or sewing needles to modify safety gear for a better fit.
Huettner said those larger companies often label smaller men’s products as being designed for women. But proper PPE is about more than just size: most women have different dimensions in the chest, shoulders head and hips that also affect the fit of the clothing, Huettner said. Their feet may also arch differently. That means the smaller versions of men’s clothing still create excess fabric and improper fits that can be uncomfortable, and even dangerous.
Last fall, the BC Construction Association reported that roughly 5.7 per cent of the more than 200,000 workers in the sector were women. That’s far from parity, but is 24 per cent higher than three years prior. “I hear from women who say that they need to feel brave to go into work,” said Karen Dearlove, the executive director of the BC Centre for Women in the Trades. “They need to have a thick skin. And I tell them, that shouldn’t be in your job description.”
But Baspaly doesn’t think that would work, either, because multinational construction PPE manufacturers often don’t make gear for women because of how small the market is. Even if B.C. made it mandatory, Baspaly said, its population alone is too small to sway company decisions on that level. That’s left the market to “boutique” and small-scale manufacturers like Helga Wear.
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