Kloey Arsenault Discusses How Union Pre-Apprenticeship Prepared Her for a Career with the Ironworkers
When Kloey Arsenault of Bowdoin graduated from high school last year, she knew she wanted to pursue a career in the union trades, but wasn’t sure which apprenticeship to apply to. Her father Luke Arsenault is a longtime member of Ironworkers Local 7 and she spent much of her youth moving around the country wherever he found work. The family would stay with him for five or six months and then pick up and move on to the next job. They eventually got homesick for Maine and permanently settled in Bowdoin, though her father still travels a lot for work.
Since she was young, Arsenault wanted to have some kind of job that would allow her to travel like her father and she knew she wanted to do something physical. Her father told her he could help get her into the Ironworkers if that’s what she wanted to do. He helped get her into the union, but she told Ironworkers Local 7 Business Agent Grant Provost that she wasn’t sure if that was the trade for her. She knew about the ironworkers, electricians and carpenters unions, but she didn’t know what else was out there.
“I told Grant that I was thinking about joining the trades, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to join the Ironworkers,” Arsenault recalled. “And he was like, ‘Yep, that's totally fine. There's this new program that's been going on for a year or two now, and I think it would be perfect for you.”
She had never heard of the Union Construction Academy of Maine, but she applied and was accepted into the UCA’s six-week pre-apprenticeship program, which she started the day after her high school graduation party. Arsenault was soon introduced to all kinds of other trades like Plumbers and Pipe Fitters, Boilermakers, Elevator Constructors, Painters, Laborers, Sheetmetal Workers and many more. The program helped her secure several key certifications necessary to be successful in a union building trades apprenticeship like basic safety training (OSHA 10), flagging, scaffolding, first-Aid/CPR/AED and more.
During her pre-apprenticeship, Kloey learned in a diverse cohort of New Mainers, people of color, women and others who have been traditionally underrepresented in the trades. She said that while there were some language barriers, instructors took the time to make sure everyone understood what was being taught.
“I really respected that because I have a feeling the group of people who are not from around here felt very welcomed and included.”
Arsenault also made several friends with young people in the program like Hayley Lawrence (Laborers 327), whom she often hangs out with and talks to every day. In the end, she decided to follow in her father's footsteps and is now a second-year apprentice with Ironworkers Local 7.
Prior to her pre-apprenticeship, if someone asked her what a union was, she would say “a bunch of people that work together,” but a year into her apprenticeship she can say “it’s a big family of people who work side by side all day and get equal pay.”
Arsenault started out making $20.25 an hour and is now up to $28 with benefits that raise her compensation to $46. Like her coworkers, she receives a raise every three months. Like many women in the trades, she also feels the pressure to prove she can do the job as well as any man. Arsenault said this issue came up the other day on the job site when she was passing out water bottles to her coworkers.
“It was hot, and I've got to make sure my brothers stay hydrated, so I go to throw my coworker a water, and it's just a terrible throw and it goes all over the ground,” she said. “And he's like, ‘Oh, we finally found something that Kloey does like a girl!’ I took it as a compliment in the sense that I work like a “man,” and I work hard. But anyway, I picked up another water bottle and chucked it at him, and it hit him right in the face, and he goes, ‘Oh, my God, never mind. I'm so sorry! I take that back!’”
The coworker later told her he meant the comment as a compliment and she replied that’s just what she’s got to do - work as hard as anyone on the crew.
“I'm working beside a bunch of men, and I want to work like one too,” she said. “I don't want to show up and feel entitled just because I may not be as strong as the guy next to me, or because I'm a woman. You know, we are equal in this trade, and if you work like you are equal in this trade, then you will be respected for it. And the people that don't respect us, well, they don't matter, and they're probably not good workers anyways.”
Arsenault says she is glad she joined the Ironworkers even if she sometimes feels she is missing out on college parties and other things people her age are doing.
“But then I just gotta think, when I'm 30 years old, I could have my own house and be completely set up,” she says.