Bridging the Gap
Proper PPE for women
By: Anna-Liza Badaloo
Worksites across all trades have a long way to go when it comes to providing women with well-fitting protective equipment
According to Statistics Canada, only about five per cent of skilled trades workers in Canada are women. With such low representation in a traditionally male dominated sector, women often face issues of gender bias. But some issues are literally life and death – such as having PPE that fits women properly, and this includes women working at pits and quarries in Ontario.
Recently, several changes were made to the Occupational Health and Safety Act regarding PPE and women’s on-site washrooms. But do these changes go far enough?
Leslie Dibling, an operational engagement and innovation manager at Capital Paving, doesn’t believe they do. She has been working in the skilled trades for over 10 years, specializing in safety. But she also has a personal connection that has informed her passion for safety.
“My brother was electrocuted in a workplace accident when he was 16 years old in a workplace experience program through his high school. He was doing work that he probably shouldn’t have been doing at that age,” Dibling recalls. “He wasn’t trained properly to understand the right to refuse unsafe work. Our family had to deal with a life-altering, traumatic brain injury because someone didn’t follow the proper procedures. I don’t want any family to go through what we did. I just want everyone to come home safely.”
Dibling’s biggest concern for women working on aggregate sites? PPE that doesn’t fit women properly and compromises their safety, leading to workarounds like using masking tape and rubber bands to avoid loose clothing getting caught. “PPE should only be used when other control measures are not practical,” she explains. “But employers use it because it’s an inexpensive way to control exposure, and it provides supplementary protection when other hazard controls are not there. That’s why we need it to fit properly – PPE is the last line of defence.”
Lucie Giroux, senior health and safety manager, projects and training at Lafarge Canada, has been working in health and safety for over 20 years. She points to improperly fitting full-body harnesses as a key issue for women. These harnesses are designed to wrap around the pelvis and catch you if you fall. “I’m heavier chested. If I were to fall while wearing a full-body harness and the chest strap fell below my chest, I could decapitate or amputate myself,” Giroux explains. “If the strap was above my chest, it would hit me in the face because there’s always some give in a harness.”
“If it doesn’t fit properly, you’re constantly readjusting it. That means you’re not wearing it properly,” adds Dibling. “Falling while wearing an improperly fitted harness could lead to blood loss.”
Working at heights may be the most dangerous situation that can impact women wearing improperly fitting PPE. Such falls, as Giroux notes, are the number one cause of industrial fatalities in Canada. Giroux has seen coverall cuffs so long that they become trip hazards, and the lack of properly sized steel-toed boots (mandatory on work sites) further puts women at risk of injury.
“Gloves that are too big get caught in machines and conveyor belts. Hard hats fall off.. Safety glasses that don’t fit fog up and they can’t see properly,” Dibling says. “Most PPE standards are not gender neutral, they’re gender blind. The challenge is that women aren’t wearing it properly, or just don’t wear it at all.”
UNIQUE CHALLENGES
Even when employers are committed to providing their female employees with properly fitting PPE, they face numerous challenges accessing the right items. “The hardest thing is finding good, affodable PPE that’s designed for women. It’s still not mainstream,” says Giroux. “We want to acknowledge that we have more women in the trades, but people still treat women’s PPE like a special order.”
At Lafarge Canada, safety boots must be eight inches. But there are only two kinds of safety boots made for women that meet these criteria and that don’t weigh 14 pounds each. When ordering high-visibility materials for women, Giroux frequently encounters long wait times and substantial price markups.
Another key issue? Small men’s sizes aren’t the same as PPE that is made for a woman’s body. In over two decades in the industry, Giroux has yet to see a harness that is specifically designed for women with breasts. Men often complain about wearing harnesses, even though they are designed for them. Imagine the discomfort that a female worker wearing an improperly tting harness endures during an eight-hour day up on a roof.
When it comes to high-quality leather gloves to work with chains, lifting or rigging equipment, a men’s “Extra Small” just doesn’t cut it because women’s hands are built differently. “If you look at hips and waistlines during pregnancy, women may have to upsize two times,” notes Dibling. “They have to compromise, and the cuffs or sleeves may be too long. Women spend money to get things altered.”
PPE that’s made for women is clearly a safety issue on construction sites. But Giroux feels it’s also a sign of gender bias in the skilled trades. “As long as we have the perception that the supervisor has to go the extra mile to get PPE made for women, that gender bias will continue,” she says. “Women are not going to put themselves in that position.”
Gender bias also shows up in other ways. “At some of our sites, we’ve built a women’s bathroom and shower. Although the men have a shower, there’s a perception that female showers are an extra thing,” Giroux explains. There are already challenges in making the skilled trades enticing to women. These levels of gender bias may present an added layer of obstacles to women wanting to enter the sector.
SOLUTIONS
Ensuring that women get properly fitting PPE sounds so simple. But clearly, that isn’t the case. What could different stakeholders do to improve the situation? Giroux wants to see logistical changes on the suppliers’ end so that it’s not “such a big issue” to order PPE made for women, as well as more trade-focused advertising that indicates to female workers that they are valuable team members. Finally, there needs to be more availability and accessibility of materials.
From manufacturers, Giroux wants to see more studies on harnesses designed for women. Dibling also takes issue with the appearance of PPE for women, and how that factors into the gender bias problem. “For the longest time, PPE was pink, which creates further segregation of women in construction. I don’t want to go to a job site and wear pink PPE,” says Dibling. “Pink steel-toed boots? It’s a quick way to get made fun of. We’re doing the same job as everybody else. Why does our PPE have to look di¦erent?”
As for employers, step number one for Giroux is acknowledging the problem. “In our company, the first thing that made a huge difference was being transparent and real,” she says. “Don’t turn it back on the person that has the concern. It’s one of the barriers to having more females in the workplace, and having existing females feel empowered.”
And what about industry associations like OSSGA? “They could implement a program like Women in Safety, a recognition and mentorship program that’s very femaleforward,” suggests Giroux. “Sometimes, part of the fear in the trade is being the first person out. Some of the pushback is pretty brutal.”
STRICTER APPROACH
At the government level, Dibling sees an opportunity to enact stricter regulations. “Manufacturers and suppliers aren’t going to change anything if it’s not legislated. Employers need to source wider size ranges, implement gender-explicit and inclusive procurement requirements, and source measurement data to specific worker populations,” says Dibling. “Legislation needs to push it from our Green Book standards and our OHS standards.”
Giroux recalls the horrific incident on Christmas Eve 2009 in Toronto, when a scaffolding tower split and four people fell to their deaths. The Ontario government responded by looking into their Working at Heights program and implementing better training. But the risks are still very real without enforced implementation.
“Here we are 15 years later and working at heights is still the number one cause of fatalities in Canada. With female harassment and discrimination, the same phenomenon happened,” Giroux says. “Every year you have to get harassment training. But there’s no time application to either their working at heights or their harassment program. It’s easy to see why harassment programs for gender bias in the industries have failed – they failed in exactly the same way that the Working at Heights program did.”
The problem, Giroux notes, is that the government works in silos. Instead of speaking to (likely) male CEOs who are under the impression that their harassment and discrimination programs are working, Giroux wants to see the government involve women from the industry and health and safety workers in decision-making processes.
Unions also have a role to play. “They’re missing an opportunity to help their female contingent get gender-appropriate PPE,” says Giroux. “If the unions pushed harder on big business, big business would push harder on manufacturers, and people would look at things differently. Rather than making a smaller pair of gloves and calling them women’s, use a woman’s hand design for the glove.” “
Unions could do a much better job in negotiating proper PPE standards from the beginning, and working with suppliers to get better information,” adds Dibling. “If they used women in their unions to gather accurate data it would be a more complete information source.”
As of July 1, several changes relating to women’s PPE, female-only on-site washrooms, and hygiene were made to the Occupational Health and Safety Act. This follows a Ministry of Labour bathroom inspection blitz that took place in February, which revealed numerous violations across 1,800 construction sites, including lack of privacy and inadequate cleaning measures.
What do Dibling and Giroux think of these new changes? “Look at any other business sector. Can you imagine them saying that they don’t have a female washroom? Access to a washroom is just human dignity,” says Dibling. “The changes also say that washrooms must have adequate lighting, hand sanitizer, and running water if sanitizer isn’t possible. It’s crazy to me that we’ve had to legislate it. The next push I can see happening is for gender-neutral or gender-fluid bathrooms.”
The new legislative addition for PPE reads: Personal protective clothing and equipment that is provided, worn or used shall be a proper fit, having regard to all relevant factors including body types. “We need to take a step further where employers are responsible to provide fit analysis,” says Dibling. “Let’s train people to spot improperly fitting PPE for women. Let’s have more classes on how to properly fit test women for respirators. And let’s have more legislation on how improperly fitting PPE can hurt women.”
Change doesn’t happen overnight. But when it comes to properly fitting PPE for women working on aggregates sites, change can’t come soon enough.