{"id":8194,"date":"2016-03-22T15:35:58","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T15:35:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=8194"},"modified":"2016-03-22T15:35:58","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T15:35:58","slug":"for-males-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=8194","title":{"rendered":"For males only?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A cross-party committee of MPs released a damning report today <\/a>(March 22) into the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inadequate response to a yawning 20 per cent gender pay gap that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s showed no signs of abating over the last four years.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe committee called for the government to adopt more decisive measures to tackle the gap, including offering flexibility to all workers unless there was a strong business case against, as well as improving productivity and wages in low-pay sectors, where most women are often pushed into.<\/p>\n

 
\nThe report also highlighted what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s called \u00e2\u20ac\u0098occupational segregation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 as a main driver of the gender pay gap \u00e2\u20ac\u201c women are often discouraged from entering higher-paid, traditionally male-dominated industries.<\/p>\n

 
\nThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why Unite has campaigned to get more women into science and engineering apprenticeships \u00e2\u20ac\u201c it launched a guide<\/a> in conjunction with Labour MP Gloria de Piero last year.<\/p>\n

 
\nUnite young member Amy Sensor is one engineering apprentice who works at manufacturing firm Brush, mainly testing turbo generators. She shares with UNITElive her story.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI left school at 16, unsure of what I wanted to do, but knowing that I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to go down the conventional route of A-Levels followed by university, as personally I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want the debt.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFortunately, during one of my school\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0098careers evenings\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, I was informed about the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098National Apprenticeship Scheme\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 online where you can search for and find thousands of apprenticeship vacancies. This means that I was able to find the opportunities available, attend interviews and be selected for Brush within about three months.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHowever, it is now the standing joke in my house that my dad started my career off for me.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bSee, I was one of these females that believed that engineering was solely for males and therefore before I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d even applied, Dad had to ring Brush to confirm that they would even consider taking on a female!<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt is only now that I am within this industry that I understand the many different avenues covered under the \u00e2\u20ac\u0098umbrella\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 of engineering, for example drawing, assembling and manufacturing.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bOne of my main concerns is that there are plenty of other females out there that have the ability and skill required to perform such engineering tasks, but that they are also under the impression that it is for males only.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTruth be told, it is a male-dominated environment, but that will only change with time as more females see what a great career choice it can be. I understand that I have been fortunate enough to enter into a \u00e2\u20ac\u0098proper apprenticeship\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. By this, I mean that I am paid a decent wage and learning transferrable skills with a high possibility of being employed at the end, alongside working towards decent qualifications (HNC\/HND).<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bHowever, this doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that I haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t seen the challenges that young people face. People I know have chosen apprenticeships that offer little or no training, are on short-term contracts and are poorly paid — the National Minimum Wage apprentice rate is now just \u00c2\u01413.30 an hour.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMany of my peers have chosen to go to university and are currently being exploited in low-pay, zero hours jobs, as their employer knows that they need the money to get through university.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bApprenticeships shouldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be seen as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0098easy route\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, but more as just as much of an option as university is seen. Schools should be trying to promote apprenticeships as much as they do university and also try to breakdown the stereotypical views that I myself have encountered such as, \u00e2\u20ac\u0098Females go into hair & beauty and males do engineering\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bMy main job onsite is to test turbo generators. However, within my career so far I have also been given the chance to weld, machine and wind.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI feel fortunate to have been given fantastic opportunities but saddened by the fact that other young women are missing out due to poor careers advice at school and society\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s gender bias. Employers should be investing in apprentices, paying them a decent wage and giving them the tools and opportunities to help develop their organisation.<\/p>\n

 
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn doing this, it is mutually beneficial for all.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

 
\nRead more stories from Unite young women apprentices here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A cross-party committee of MPs released a damning report today (March 22) into the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s inadequate response to a yawning 20 per cent gender pay gap that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s showed no signs of abating over the last four years.   The committee called for the government to adopt more decisive measures to tackle the gap, including offering […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8195,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[17],"tags":[260,116,55,209],"wps_subtitle":"Unite engineering apprentice tells her story","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8194"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8196,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8194\/revisions\/8196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}