About PGTI

Founded in 2008, PGTI is a multi-stakeholder collaboration of construction industry stakeholders committed to crushing the barriers to women’s access to good jobs in the union construction trades. Our goal is 20% women by 2020.

Screenshot 2020-06-01 15.10.03In 2011, our founding document, Unfinished Businessreviewed research by academics, advocates and tradeswomen themselves to answer the question, “Decades after the law was passed giving women the right to jobs in the trades, why are women still not fairly represented?” Unfinished Business blew away myths such as “women don’t want these jobs,” and “women aren’t strong enough,” myths that blamed women for a national policy failure. The answer to why women were not entering and staying in the trades was, and is today, systemic sexism and discrimination within all aspects of the industry. We set out to identify practices and policies that would overwhelm barriers to women’s success in the trades and build a community committed to change. PGTI is that learning community. We have met every other month since 2008. Because many of us have been working on this issue for decades, we begin every meeting with our mantra:

There is no silver bullet
We are in this together
We will never never give up

Today, PGTI is a collaboration of over 75 industry partners including unions and apprenticeship programs, contractors, developers and community organizations. Two recent articles describe the history of the first 13 years of PGTI’s development are

High points of PGTI’s successes include:

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