More Women Sought to Lay a Foundation as Bricklayers : Labor: U.S. is trying to break down a wall that has kept them out of the ‘trowel trades.’ Experts say the hurdle isn’t attracting females, it’s keeping them once they start.

BOSTON — Colleen Muldoon has been a bricklayer for eight of her 35 years. But she stopped working about six months ago--”burned out,” she says, by the stresses of being one of the few women in the trade.

“I got sick of having to prove myself every day,” the Columbus, Ohio, woman said.

With men representing the overwhelming majority of America’s bricklayers, masons and construction workers, the U.S. Labor Department is spending money to break down a wall that has kept women out of the so-called trowel trades.

The department recently announced $1.5 million in grants to help women and minorities train for non-traditional occupations. Of that, nearly $225,000 is going to the International Masonry Institute to recruit and retain more women in jobs as stonemasons, brick and tile layers, plasterers and the like.

The IMI plans to target four areas: New England, Atlantic City, N.J., Chicago and Seattle.

It’s money that is well spent, Muldoon said.

Labor experts say the real hurdle isn’t attracting women to such fields. It’s keeping them from quitting once they start.

“You can’t just throw them in the jobs and leave them alone when they have no one to go to,” said Roberta McKay, a program analyst with the Labor Department.

A 1994 Bureau of Labor Statistics report found that women held 108,000 construction jobs that year--about 2.2% of all construction workers and supervisors. For masonry workers, the figure was less than 1%.

“They’re not glamorous professions,” said Hazel Bradford, an IMI spokeswoman. “Women assume that they are backbreaking and dirty and male-dominated and old-fashioned.”

The Labor Department grants are aimed at showing women that so-called male professions typically pay well and provide good benefits. The average union bricklayer, for example, makes $23.68 an hour, Bradford said.

David Gomes, field representative for the eastern Massachusetts chapter of the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen, said the jobs can be physically demanding for women. “It’s hell on their nails,” he joked.

Muldoon, who described herself as strong, husky and athletic, said the problem is not the physical challenges, but the emotional challenges of working with men who don’t always welcome women.

“It’s going to take a long while to change,” she said.

Some things are changing, however.

At its recent annual meeting, the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Craftsmen approved a name change: the International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts People.

Fred Salvucci, president of a masonry business in Burlington, said he has hired women in the past and would love to hire more. Problem is, there aren’t any.

Federal and state laws require construction firms to try to have women constitute at least 6.9% of their work force. But many union heads and company owners said that’s a difficult goal.

“We break our butt trying to get them, we send them to school, we spend ‘X’ number of dollars [training] them, and they don’t follow through,” said Joe Birmingham, secretary and treasurer of Local 21 of the bricklayers union in Chicago.

Muldoon, meanwhile, said she’s not quite ready to give it all up.

“It really gives you a sense of fulfillment, being able to look at your work and say . . . ‘Hey, I worked on that,’ ” she said.