As state and federal agencies including the departments of transportation, commerce, and energy are gearing up to break ground on major projects funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF),…

The Chicago Women in Trades (CWIT) was awarded a $499,986 cooperative agreement from the United States Department of Labor's Women's Bureau under the Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations Technical Assistance Grant Program (WANTO TA Grant Program, CFDA 17.701) to launch the Women in the Infrastructure Workforce Initiative. The initiative will support teams in nine states and municipalities to develop and implement workforce equity plans leveraging expanded resources for pre-apprenticeship training and supportive services. CWIT will promote adoption of a framework to guide increasing women's inclusion in infrastructure jobs and support tradeswomen's organizations in implementing collaborative state and local government agency and industry stakeholder teams. Deliverables include a Washington, D.C. summit for teams to share best practices, technical assistance to develop equity plans, and training public agency staff. The period of performance is from August 15, 2022 to November 25, 2022.

As state and federal agencies including the departments of transportation, commerce, and energy are gearing up to break ground on major projects funded by the bipartisan infrastructure bill (BIF), chicago women in trades (cwit) is proposing to launch the women in the infrastructure workforce initiative to accelerate state and local efforts to increase women's inclusion and equity in construction-trades jobs on these projects. As a result of this initiative, cwit expects to grow the percent of women entering and completing apprenticeship programs, by increasing opportunity for them to work, retain and advance on infrastructure projects. These goals will be met as a result of the initiative supporting teams in 10 states and municipalities across the country who will work to leverage expanded resources to support pre-apprenticeship training and other essential supportive services, and stronger leadership from apprenticeship programs, unions, and contractors for increasing the number of women prepared to enter, find equitable and respectful working conditions, and succeed in the skilled trades. The initiative will promote national, regional and local retention models that support tradeswomen with mentorship, peer support, guidance and skill building to advance in skilled trade occupations. Activities performed to meet these goals, the women in the infrastructure workforce initiative will help tradeswomen's organizations and their allies take advantage of this moment by mobilizing community-based collaborative teams to develop and implement workforce-equity plans for BIF-funded projects in their regions. The initiative is guided by the goals set forth in the framework for promoting workforce equity and inclusion for infrastructure projects (the framework) developed in by cwit in collaboration with the national taskforce on tradeswomen's issues. Cwit will promote the adoption of the ten components of the framework and guide its implementation in nine select states and metropolitan areas across the country that include northern california, illinois, kansas, new orleans- LA, new york city, central ohio, SAN antonio-texas, vermont, west virginia. The initiative will support tradeswomen's organizations in each of these locales to jumpstart and spearhead collaborative teams of the related state or local government agencies funding infrastructure projects and construction industry stakeholders who will be performing the work. These teams will include tradeswomen's advocates and other key allies, staff from the agency that will let contracts for the infrastructure projects, and staff from other allied agencies or entities such as key raps, unions, and contractors working together to increase opportunities for tradeswomen and other underrepresented groups to work on infrastructure projects. Deliverables cwit will hold a summit in washington, DC where all of the collaborative teams of tradeswomen's advocates and other key allies from the ten identified areas will come together in a peer-learning forum to share plans and best practices and to engage with the federal agencies that are providing the funding for the infrastructure projects. The summit participants will also include federal procurement officers from the relevant agencies and other interested stakeholders such as industry leaders, elected officials, foundations that are funding infrastructure inclusion work, and people from national organizations doing related work. 2. Cwit will support the teams in their locales following the summit to implement the next steps of the plans developed at the summit. This will include meetings with key policymakers, convening state agencies to identify resources and commit to oversight, design ongoing state, municipal or project wide campaigns to promote, create and sustain inclusive and diverse infrastructure worksites, presenting the equity platform at contractor pre-bid and post-award conferences and providing training/guidance on including equity to bidders and awardees of infrastructure contracts. 3. Cwit will provide technical assistance to organizations in each ten identified areas to help them develop workforce-equity plans, promote their adoption, and provide ongoing oversight to ensure effective implementation. 4. Cwit will work with team leaders and their partners to build their capacity to provide industry stakeholders with resources, technical assistance on policy and practices to address recruitment and retention of tradeswomen, and trainings. 5. Cwit will work with the teams to provide training to public agency compliance officers on the unique challenges faced by tradeswomen, work with public agencies to establish reporting protocols and a portal for public reporting, and to promote and support the development of stakeholder equity oversight committees to meet on a monthly or quarterly basis to assess progress, address challenges to achieving goals and foster ongoing collaboration. Intended beneficiary cwit will promote the adoption of the ten components of the framework and guide its implementation in nine select states and metropolitan areas across the country that include northern california, illinois, kansas, new orleans- LA, new york city, central ohio, SAN antonio-texas, vermont, west virginia. The initiative will support tradeswomen's organizations in each of these locales to jumpstart and spearhead collaborative teams of the related state or local government agencies funding infrastructure projects and construction industry stakeholders who will be performing the work. Subrecipient activities yes