Pay differences between men and women in the aggregates industry

Karen Hubacz-Kiley never doubted she would become a third-generation owner of Bond Construction Corp., a company that produces sand, gravel and asphalt.

While in college, Hubacz-Kiley received a commercial driver’s license to handle loaders at the family pit. She took in all of the information she could from her grandfather, father and uncle to learn more about the family business.

“I always wanted to work at the pit with my father from my earliest recollection,” she says.

This was true for Hubacz-Kiley and her two cousins, Jodi and Nancy Hubacz-Kiley. Today, the three women hold management roles at Bond Construction. Hubacz-Kiley’s daughter, Sadie, recently joined the company, as well.

“We are all shareholders of Bond Construction with our fathers,” Hubacz-Kiley says. “We never dreamed that we, the girls, would truly be at the helm of our family business. It’s amazing how things turned out.”

Karen Hubacz-Kiley holds a photo of her grandfather, along with a fossil that her grandfather found at the Bond Construction site in 1958. Photos courtesy of Bond Construction Corp.

A predominantly female management team like Bond Construction’s is, of course, rare in the aggregates industry, as there are more men than women in the industry. In addition to the gender gap, a recent study shows that men make more money than women in the mining and quarrying industries.

PayScale, a crowdsourced salary database, released a study in 2015 on pay equality between men and women across various industries. The mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction industries reported showed the largest controlled gender pay gap and the third-largest uncontrolled gender pay gap out of all other industries, the study reports.

According to PayScale, the uncontrolled pay gap compares the average earnings of all working men to all working women, while the controlled pay gap compares the average earnings of men and women who hold similar job positions.

Based on the study, men earn about $4,000 more annually than women in PayScale’s mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction category. This amounts to a 5.4 percent pay difference, on average.

There are some factors that may account for the differences. Time magazine analyzed this study further and notes that women tend to enter lower-paying fields than men, and women tend to take more time off for maternity leave. The magazine adds that a pay gap between men and women would still exist in some industries despite these two factors.

Still, Hubacz-Kiley explored these PayScale takeaways and isn’t sure whether the numbers completely reflect the current state of the aggregates industry.

“There’s probably some truth to the numbers, but I like to look at how far we’ve come as an industry the last 20 years,” she says.

In the 1980s, for example, Hubacz-Kiley says women were less likely to be viewed as equals in the aggregates industry. With time, though, women working in aggregates have been viewed more positively, she adds.

“The industry is moving forward,” she says. “Eventually, I would like to think we’ll hit a point where there won’t be any kind of pay separation based on gender.”

A ratio problem

Monica Manolas, Cemex vice president of human resources for Florida and the Carolinas, also explored the PayScale study. The study is a bit misleading, she says, because the male-to-female ratio attributes to the pay gap in aggregates.

“I think the issue is we don’t have enough women in the industry,” Manolas says. “Once we get more, we’ll likely see the disparity shrink.”

Atisthan Roach, Vulcan Materials manager of public affairs and corporate communications, agrees the pool of men working at quarries and sand-and-gravel pits is way larger than the pool of women.

“It’s a historically male-dominated industry,” Roach says. “At Vulcan, we have a diversity-inclusion initiative, and through our recruiting efforts, we’re seeing some more women. But these numbers won’t adjust overnight. It’s an ongoing shift.”

Because the aggregates industry is male-dominated and the role of women has been increasing for the last couple of decades, Roach suggests men would naturally still have some of the highest-paid positions in the industry.

Roach adds that pay is equal for lower-level jobs at Vulcan Materials today.

“Regardless of gender, if there are two water truck drivers and both have been at Vulcan for 10 years with similar work ethics, we’re going to pay them the same,” Roach says.

Evening the playing field

Manolas entered the aggregates industry in the 1990s, working as an engineer at a cement plant after finishing college. At the time, she was the only woman working for the company. She described that time as a “blessing and a curse.”

“It was strange to go from college where I was half the population to a workplace where I’m the only female,” she says. “Because of that, people noticed my work more. The spotlight was more on me at times, so there was more pressure to not make mistakes.”

Manolas doesn’t regret her decision to launch a career in aggregates, though. She says the industry has become more welcoming and inviting to women since she entered more than 20 years ago.

Hubacz-Kiley, Manolas and Roach all agree recruiting more women to fill positions at quarries could help solve the issue of the pay imbalance between men and women. When looking to recruit more women to the industry, Hubacz-Kiley suggests connecting with females in high schools and colleges in a quarry’s surrounding community.

“I work with a lot of high schools locally, and when I give kids a tour, the girls who come through are surprised I’m giving the tour because I’m a woman,” she says. “I tell them that our industry embraces women who know what they’re doing, and you really can move up fast in aggregates as a woman since there aren’t a lot of us.”

Manolas says she has the most luck with hiring women in rural communities where there are fewer jobs in those towns.

“I always tell them it’s dusty and dirty on the job, but it’s also safe and fun,” Manolas says. “I tell them, ‘Just give it a shot to see if you like it.’ And many do end up liking it.”

Manolas recently helped advance a global-diversity initiative at Cemex to generate metrics that offer insights about the company’s hiring practices regarding women, disabled people, veterans and minorities. She says the Cemex initiative launched in Colombia and Mexico with a lot of success.

“If you have half the population or more that doesn’t look to your company as a career opportunity, you have a huge untapped market,” she says. “It’s to our advantage to tap into women to be dependable workers in the industry.”

Median pay by gender

• Male median pay in mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction: $78,200
• Female median pay in mining, quarrying and oil and gas extraction: $74,000

PayScale used crowdsourced data and algorithms to compile a database of about 1.4 million profiles to provide people with visibility to the salaries of various job positions. The database released a study in November 2015 on the gender pay gap using data from its profiles.