For 2,500 feet, Rebecca Vettorel, sitting inside her tunnel boring machine, dug her way through dirt and clay, from one side of the Allegheny River to the other, sometimes 60 feet under the riverbed, creating the first of two tubes through which a new subway line will be built.

Before Vettorel, 38 and the single mother of a 19 year old, became an Operating Engineer, she worked in food service. And that is how she became an Operating Engineer. At work one day, talking with some Operating Engineers, she said to them, “I scoop food; you scoop dirt.”

“We have an apprentice program. Why don’t you apply?” dared one of her restaurant customers.

She went to meet Local 66 vice president and business agent Ron Sapp in “my business suit and with my fancy resume. I got the apprenticeship because of the grease under my fingernails from working on my car earlier that day.” She really got the apprenticeship because Sapp was impressed.

Vettorel was chosen to operate the tunnel boring machine (TBM) because the companies boring the tunnel, Obayashi Corporation and Trumbull Corporation, liked her work.

A woman in a man’s world

While there are more women working on the construction site than in earlier years, it is, Vittorel said, “a man’s world out here. You need the brawn.”

Her experience has been different from the experiences of the women who pioneered the “women in non-traditional employment” movement. “There’s a certain standard here. I can’t worry about my hair getting messed up or my nails getting dirty.

"My experience is that the men will teach you if you are willing to learn, if you come in without an agenda and are willing to listen. The men I work with want to provide for their families and go home at night.

"The women before me had the trouble. Whenever a tradeswoman is close to retiring -- and they are the ones who paved the way for me and other women -- I thank them. They made it happen.”

Shop steward in a man’s world

Ron Sapp also chose Rebecca Vettorel to be the shop steward on the tunnel job.

“I didn’t know if it would be fair to her, but I figured she could do the job," Sapp said. "She wanted to give it a shot and she made the best of the opportunity."

“I was nervous," Vettorel said. "I’d never held the position and had no training. I read the [contract], I knew Ron was a phone call away, and I listened to what the men had to say.” She has had few problems above the petty, and resolved everything with little fuss. “You listen, you give details, you follow the book.”

“Choosing her was the right thing to do," Sapp said. "She didn’t let me down.”

Choosing to become an operating engineer was the right thing to do for Rebecca Vettorel. Operating the TBM was “the high point of my career.”

Story by Gary Schoichet, CWA Local 1180
Video by Randy Lyman, SEIU Local 1021