Operation Access: A Pre-Apprenticeship
Bridging Program for Women

REVIEW BY MARCIA BRAUNDY

Published by ACTEW
Toronto, Ontario

This three volume set, prepared by Shelly Gordon for Advocates for Community Based Training and Employment for Women (ACTEW) is both enlightening and frustrating. It is enlightening in that if offers, in one document, a clear description of the issues facing women, and Canada as a whole, as we enter the labour market of the 1990s. Its detail provides an excellent rationale for increased funding and federal and provincial support for bridging programs and ongoing training for women. A significant innovation is that it notes and analyzes where, within course content and practice, Native and multicultural issues need special attention.

It is frustrating because although the books are sub-titled a "pre-apprenticeship bridging program for women," they provide only a brief outline of what components such a program should include rather than suggesting specific activities and exercises that could assist an instructor implementing the course. This is in spite of the fact that course developers and instructors, program participants and tradeswomen working in the field were surveyed to determine what would be useful.

In the first volume, Framing Women's Options, Gordon has compiled, through a comprehensive review of the current literature, an extensive and well-documented description of the issues facing women in the labour force today. From participation rates to occupational segregation, from undervaluing women's work to the unequal burden of child care responsibility and systemic discrimination in the workplace, the issues are clear.

Current options for resolving these issues are also included. By describing employment equity, pay equity, child care and parental support initiatives, Gordon shows how affirmative action can change the situation for women, Natives, visible minorities, and persons with disabilities.

Ontario's current economic and labour market trends are also examined in this volume. The significant effects that free trade will have on women's employment are explored, as well as the current position of women in the particular sectors of the labour market where shortages are occurring, which together make a dynamic argument for more skills training for women.

I really wanted to be a mechanic, but there were no apprenticeships for women!

The barriers to training and employment in these fields are well documented also, and Gordon includes suggestions that can assist in alleviating the problems. The section on Skilled Trades Apprenticeships presents a good overview on apprenticeship in the country, and in Ontario specifically and the discussion of women's access is extensive and well documented, addressing both barriers and proposed recommendations for action.