Dale McCormick of Maine, who works to improve women's earnings and for gay rights, has designs on the national arena.By Lisa Genasci
Dale McCormick describes herself as a builder.
On a practical level, she is one of the country's first women
journey-level carpenters, the former owner of a construction
company, author of two books on home repairs and founder of a
program that trains women on welfare for the better-paid
blue-collar jobs usually held by men.
She is also a much-respected three-term Maine state senator,acclaimed for her ability to forge alliances among disparate
groups. A strong advocate for gay and lesbian rights, she won her
last election in a conservative, rural district with 68 percent
of the vote when many other Democrats fell to Republican
challengers.
"She is extremely talented," said Frank O'Hara, a public
policy consultant based in Portland, Maine. "She is also
pragmatic. She has strong values, but she is willing to talk and
deal with any one on an equal basis."
In her first election, campaigning against the Republican
incumbent, McCormick rode a bicycle door to door across her
district, visiting constituents to hear their concerns.
"I felt like a minipollster; I had my finger on the pulse,"
McCormick said recently.
She hopes to stretch her platform, centered on health-care and
welfare reform, onto a national stage. She recently filed to run
in the Democratic primary for Maine's First Congressional
District in 1996.
"She brings her practical experience and zeal of being an
advocate into government," said Cindy Marano, executive director
of Wider Opportunities for Women, a Washington-based advocacy
group for women in the trades.
Joanne D'Arcangelo, also a woman's advocate and director of
the Maine Bar Foundation, said McCormick "has the most profound
can-do attitude of anyone I have ever met. No obstacle is
overwhelming."
After pioneering in the construction industry, McCormick over
the past seven years has built and run Women Unlimited, a group
that has formed an alliance between private enterprise and the
state Department of Transportation.
Funded by the DOT, the Maine Department of Education and
private foundations, the aim of Women Unlimited is to train women
for higher-paying nontraditional work and get them off welfare.
The DOT asks contractors bidding on government work to send
job notices to Women Unlimited, which has a data bank with
information on about 400 women trained by the group.
Last year, Women Unlimited placed 81 percent of its graduates
in jobs. Of the women enrolled, 71 percent were mothers on
welfare, McCormick said.
"Often companies say they don't know how to find qualified
women," she said.
Nationwide there are nearly 54 million women who work. But
only 6.6 percent of these women are employed in occupations that
the Labor Department defines as nontraditional work for women.
At the same time, women who do hold nontraditional jobs
typically earn between 20 percent and 30 percent more than they
would as clerks or secretaries.
"Dale has changed the face of construction in Maine and
changed the lives of many women on welfare," said Jane Gilbert,
director of equal opportunity and labor relations for the
Department of Transportation.
On one large bridge construction project in Maine, 11.9
percent of the hours are being worked by women, Gilbert said.
That is almost unheard of in the industry, where the rarely met
target on government projects is 6.9 percent.
Besides tenacious and creative, McCormick's supporters
describe her as courageous. She has persevered despite death
threats and hate mail.
In her first election, her Republican opponent tried to make
McCormick's sexual orientation an issue, but her openness
disarmed him.
"I'm Miss Lesbian in Maine. Where had he been?" said
McCormick, a vocal lobbyist for gay rights before being elected
to the Senate.
McCormick has a 14-month-old baby with her partner of 10
years, Betsy Sweet.
Some of her earliest memories are of shop class and building.
McCormick said she can't remember a time when she didn't know how
to use tools. When the neighborhood kids put on puppet shows,
McCormick built the stage; when they sold lemonade, she built the
stand.
Another significant influence was politics. Her stepfather was
a county chairman for the Democratic Party.
"Politics was always under discussion," McCormick said. "My
parents felt strongly about the Constitution and ideals of the
country."
In junior high and high school, McCormick worked for several
election campaigns.
At the University of Iowa, during the Vietnam War, McCormick
was involved in the peace movement. She graduated in 1970 with a
degree in American studies, thinking she would teach.
But McCormick couldn't find a job. While wondering what to do
she heard about an apprenticeship for the International
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners Local 1260 -- but that
wasn't the kind of work women did.
So a male friend turned in her application. And her name,
Dale, was androgynous enough to not arouse suspicion or
prejudice. McCormick received the highest grade on a written test
was granted an interview and then was picked for the
apprenticeship.
"I have to give credit for even thinking about applying to the
women's movement, which was giving us permission to push the
envelope of what we could be," McCormick said.
The apprenticeship lasted four years. McCormick worked
infrequently with other women.
Some male construction workers wrote graffiti on bathroom
walls about her. Others put pinups where she hung her coat and
sexual objects in her lunch box.
The situation became particularly tense in her last year, and
she filed a sexual harassment complaint with the local Human
Rights Commission in Iowa City.
"There was a level of anger directed toward me that I couldn't
have survived," McCormick said.
A finding in her favor allowed McCormick to complete the
course, and she went on to open a construction company.
In 1977, McCormick wrote Against the Grain, a Carpentry Manual
for Women, then moved to Maine three years later to teach courses
on home building. There, she wrote a second book, House Mending
and Home Repair for the Rest of Us.
In 1988, McCormick started Women Unlimited, offering 14-week
courses in nontraditional subjects such as carpentry, road
construction, truck driving, surveying and drafting.
The course includes seminars on self-esteem, the history of
women and work, physical conditioning, resume writing and how to
deal with sexual harassment.
"Welfare reform should involve moving women from welfare to
economic self-sufficiency," McCormick said. "The only way to do
that is to train women for well-paying jobs. That means trade and
technical jobs, and that's what Women Unlimited does."