Female electrical line workers

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4 • 796 Ratings

🗓️ 3 May 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Electrical line workers work all kinds of hours in very challenging conditions to keep electricity flowing to our homes and businesses. It's traditionally been a very male occupation but that's changing as more women break into the industry.

We speak to Colombia’s first ever intake of female apprentice line workers about their intensive training experience, and Rosa Vasquez – one of the first women to do the job in Texas in 1978. Over in Kansas, Amy Fischbach, the Field Editor for T&D World magazine, is raising awareness of the trade in a podcast about women in line work. We also head to Pakistan where there are currently no women in this line of work, and head to Kansas hear from

Presenter / producer: Olivia Wilson Image: Apprentice line workers in Colombia; Credit: ISA

Transcript

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0:00.0	15 years ago, 23-year-old Norwegian student Martina Vic Magnuson was killed in an apartment near Mayfair.
0:08.2	23-year-old Martinevic Magnuson was found partially buried in the basement.
0:12.3	Before being questioned, the only suspect in the case had fled the UK to Yemen.
0:17.2	I made a promise to Martina's family to find out what happened.
0:26.6	Murder in Mayfair, part of the documentary, find it wherever you get your BBC podcast. Welcome to Business Daily on the BBC World Service with me, Olivia Wilson.
0:32.6	On today's program, who are the people who look after our power lines?
0:36.6	They work in all kinds of conditions to keep the electricity flowing into our houses and businesses.
0:42.9	When a storm hits and they call you, you have to pack your bag and go.
0:47.5	It's always been a male-dominated job, but that's changing.
0:50.8	We'll hear from Colombia's first female line workers and a story of one woman who joined an all-male team in 1978.
0:59.3	Back then, the men didn't like women working in construction,
1:03.6	but I proved to them that I could do it.
1:06.3	That's all coming up here on Business Daily.
1:30.5	Electrical line work is a hard graft. It involves repairing and replacing electrical power lines to ensure homes and businesses have the energy they need.
1:35.1	Sounds straightforward enough,
1:37.2	except all of this is done hundreds of feet above the ground.
1:41.2	On a tower, workers must scale to reach the cables.
1:47.0	They are often the first responders after a storm or natural disaster.
1:58.0	And this requires them to be away from home for long periods of time.
2:03.6	It is an industry dominated by men, but that is slowly changing across the globe.
2:11.6	But let's start at the beginning, over in the US.
2:15.6	Now the country is leading the way in encouraging more women
	...

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