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Women in Construction Week 2026
Level Up. Build Strong.
March 1–7 marked Women in Construction Week, led by National Association of Women in Construction and framed by this year’s theme: “Level Up. Build Strong.”
But let’s be honest. Women in the trades have been leveling up without the industry keeping pace.
For too long, construction has expected women to adapt, endure, and prove themselves in systems that were never designed for them. Workplaces that still tolerate harassment. Training pathways that aren’t accessible. Cultures that reward exclusion and call it tradition.
And yet—we’re still here.
Not just surviving.
Leading. Building. Changing everything.
Through my work in the labour movement and initiatives like ConnectHER, I see what real change looks like and I also see how far we still have to go.
Women are entering the trades in greater numbers, but retention is still a fight. Women are speaking up, but too often they’re still not heard.
We celebrate progress, while women are still navigating unsafe job sites, ill-fitting PPE, and systems that push them out faster than they bring them in.
That’s not progress. That’s a gap.
And we cannot talk about safety, culture, and accountability in this industry without saying her name:
Amber Mary Czech.
A 20-year-old woman welder
Killed at work.
Where she should have been safe.
Her death is not an isolated tragedy, it is a devastating reminder of what is at stake when workplaces fail to take safety, harassment, and violence seriously.
No more Ambers.
That has to mean something.
It has to mean:
- zero tolerance for harassment and violence
- real enforcement of health and safety protections
- workplaces where women are not isolated, ignored, or put at risk
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systems that act before harm happens—not after
Leveling up means more than recruitment posters and photo ops.
It means dismantling the conditions that make stories like Amber’s possible.
Building strong means we stop asking women to be resilient in broken systems—and start fixing the systems.
Because women don’t need to be “welcomed” into the trades.
We belong here.
And through work like ConnectHER, we are building something different: community, mentorship, and power. Turning lived experience into action. Turning barriers into bargaining language. Turning isolation into solidarity.
This isn’t about representation for the sake of optics.
It’s about transformation.
So yes—celebrate Women in Construction Week.
But don’t confuse recognition with progress.
The real work?
That happens every day—on job sites, in union halls, and in the spaces where women are no longer asking for change.
We’re demanding it.
And we’re building it.
For every woman in this industry.
And for Amber.
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