Zandra John is a 28-year-old tile maker from Flatbush, Brooklyn. But her mother always wanted her to be a teacher.
Three years after graduating from high school with a minor in English, John was unable to re-enroll in his program because he was behind on his tuition payments. She already owed $ 5,000 in student loans and earned $ 12 an hour (about $ 25,000 a year) as an assistant professor.
Although she loved working with children and liked the idea of becoming an English or special needs teacher, her job as a teaching assistant had no advantages and she relied on Medicaid and food stamps.
“I really like kids, but I felt like something was missing. I wasn’t really doing what I wanted to do,” says John. “And even though I wanted to finish school, I knew that $ 12 an hour wouldn’t pay off my loans, it wouldn’t help me pay the tuition, it wouldn’t really do much, but it would help me get out. So I went to Internet. ”
He looked for well-paid papers and found himself looking for jobs in construction. He quickly thought of his father.
“My father was a carpenter, he worked at the railway stations. And that’s where I started to fall in love with building things, fixing things at home. I would always help him. I wanted to have a career in this field, but I wasn’t sure if I would be able to do that, ”John says. “It’s a man-dominated field. And they don’t usually want women in it.”
Now, John earns about $ 32 an hour as a tile apprentice. With overtime, he expects to earn about $ 70,000 this year and is working to become a traveler, earning up to $ 61 an hour in his union, about $ 126,880 a year.
“Going from $ 12 an hour to $ 32 an hour makes a big difference to me,” she says. “I can save more. I can help my mom more.”
Get the job
John’s first step into construction was to enroll in a free 7-week training program with Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), a New York-based organization that prepares, trains, and places women in careers in specialized trades. in construction, utilities and maintenance.
“It was really the start of a whole trip for me. I did TA during the day and I would leave there and go straight to NEW,” he recalls.
In June 2018, he graduated from the program and began an eight-week pre-apprenticeship program in tile setup that led to an official apprenticeship. He says he was attracted to the show because it combined his interest in construction with his artistic hobbies.
“One of the reasons I love tiles is because tiles and art have a connection. Many times when we’re laying tiles it’s like a mural. We make a lot of murals. We’ve made a flower mural. We’ve done it. made a mural cloud. We made a mural in LaGuardia, “he says. “I love art, so the fact that I can incorporate two things I love is amazing to me.”
Zandra John mixing cement
A day at work
Of course, John is the first to say that tiling is not a relaxing hobby. Work can include long days with hard and dangerous physical work. She describes an accident in which a pile of bathroom stops fell on her while she was tiling the bathroom floor.
He also says harassment is common.
“My first day was very hard with me, I’m not going to lie. Because she’s the only woman who works, sometimes it can be weird because guys are scared to say ‘Good morning’ or stare at you,” she says. John. “Sometimes guys make little comments like,‘ Oh, what made you want to do this? Shouldn’t you be at home? “
A typical day starts around 5:45 in the morning. Your trip to Manhattan takes about 40 minutes. John says he arrives at his sight around 6:45 a.m. and that work usually begins between 7 and 7:15 p.m.
“When I come in, I get to work. I go to the head of my gang, I have the tools,” he says. “I have my windmill, I make sure I have water, that the wet saw is on and that it goes up the scaffold.”
Tasks can include cutting tiles with a saw, mixing “mud” that is used to level floors, lay tiles, or grout tiles.
The team receives a coffee break around 9 a.m. and a lunch break around noon. Usually the day ends around 3pm, unless the team works overtime, which can go on until the evening.
From time to time, work continues over the weekend, which is often well received, as workers are paid overtime pay.
“Saturday is an hour and a half. Sunday is double. But sometimes they won’t tell you we’re working on the weekend,” John says. “[Managers] they employ people they favor or their friends. They do. So you have to fix it. ”
His trick to making sure he knows the possible weekend job is to say “until tomorrow” on Fridays and measure people’s reactions. Then it just shows up.
“I once worked at LaGuardia Airport and they acted in a fun way,” John recalls. After suspecting there would be work over the weekend, “I got there [on Saturday] and the foreman laughed, like “Did you really come?” I say to myself, “Yes, I’m coming!”
“I’ll show you”
While John enjoys working in construction and values the health and retirement benefits he gets from being part of his union, he says women, and especially those of color, can face challenges at work.
“It’s already hard to be a woman in construction, but it’s also very difficult to be black in construction,” she says. “They’d draw things in the bathroom. They’d put Trump stuff or N-word stuff. Or they’d draw a monkey picture or stuff like that. They even had, when I was in LaGuardia, Nazi stuff in the bathroom.”
She continues, “Some people really do their best to feel uncomfortable. I don’t understand why.”
John says he is grateful to have found allies and mentors who have supported him throughout his learning and who has learned to ignore past comments.
“I’ve met some amazing guys in the union. When I’m not working, they get me up, talk to me, ask me if I’m okay or if I need something,” he says. “But some guys try to ruin your ribs on purpose, just because you feel uncomfortable. Sometimes they want you to feel uncomfortable, like you don’t belong here.”
“But I want to be here, so I’ll show you I belong here.”
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