Workplace Violence

Remembering Amber Czech and Outi Hicks

In the early morning of a regular work day, a young welder, Amber Czech, showed up to build her future. At just 20 years old, she had completed a 10-month welding program and stepped into the trades with skill, ambition, and pride. Then, in a devastating turn of events, was brutally murdered by a male coworker on the job site. 

Amber’s death is heartbreaking - but to our community, it must do far more than evoke sorrow, it must drive change. 

Violence, especially gender-based and harassment-driven, on construction sites is a deeper issue than just one horrific incident. Women entering the trades often face a culture not built with their full safety in mind. On sites where pressure, deadlines, and ego combine, the underlying risks of harassment can escalate if unaddressed. Silence, avoidance, or the belief that “that wouldn’t happen here” are dangerous mindsets. Your responsibility is not optional. Your silence is complicity. Amber’s death is so shocking in its brutality - but the systemic issues around job site culture, mental health, respect, and intervention are persistent. 

Whether you're a journeyperson, supervisor, or apprentice, having each other's backs matters. If something feels off, speak up, intervene, and support. Men in the trades, especially have a role as allies to look out for their sisters on site. The trades are tough physically and mentally. Stress, pressure, isolation, when combined with unchecked attitudes, things can spiral. Training in conflict awareness, de-escalation, and recognising red flags should be part of our toolbox. When we talk about safety, we usually think of PPE like hardhats, gloves, and steel toe boots. Some may be surprised to hear that safety also includes physical and emotional wellbeing. Amber just went to work, expecting to build a future, but did not return home. That must not happen again. 

Let's choose to remember Amber not as a tragic statistic, but as motivation. A young person who believed in apprenticeships, welding, and building something tangible with her hands. Let her passing push the industry to step up and truly guarantee: any person who shows up to work deserves to be there and leave safe. For women in the trades. For men in the trades, for every crew, every job site, every shift. We can build more than skyscrapers, bridges, and highways. We can build dignity, respect, safety and a community where violence has no place.

When we talk about workplace violence, it’s easy for people to assume it happens “somewhere else,” or that it only affects certain industries or high-risk environments. But the story of Outi Hicks is a devastating reminder that violence does not stay neatly contained in private spaces - it follows people into their workplaces, their communities, and the places where they should feel safest.

Outi Hicks was a dedicated professional, working as a union carpenter apprentice, a mother of three, and a woman loved deeply by her colleagues and community. Her life was taken in an act of violence that intersected directly with her working life, the kind of violence that employers often fail to recognize, understand, or properly respond to.

On February 14, 2017, Outi was murdered while working on a construction site in Fresno County, California. Her killer was Aaron Isidro Lopez, a non-union, part-time worker employed at the same site. In the days leading up to her death, Outi had told family members about harassment, bullying, and threats from Lopez. On the morning of her murder, those warnings became reality.

Lopez attacked Outi with a heavy metal pipe, beating her repeatedly until she died from blunt-force trauma. He later pleaded no contest to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison. The violence she endured was sudden, brutal, and entirely preventable - and it unfolded at a workplace that should have protected her.

Outi’s story exposes the truth that many employers, contractors, and even unions struggle to confront:

Domestic violence, harassment, and intimidation don’t stay at home - they show up on job sites, in shops, on shift, and in the places workers should feel safest.

Workplace violence is not just about physical assaults. It includes:

• ongoing harassment by co-workers

• threats or intimidation that go unreported

• bullying that escalates over time

• warning signs that are dismissed as “drama” or “personal issues”

In male-dominated industries like the skilled trades, these risks are even higher. Women often work in isolated areas, on large sites with limited oversight, or in environments where power dynamics and silence protect aggressors.

Outi Hicks should still be alive.

Her death should have been a call to action for every employer, union, contractor, and crew:

• listen when workers report harassment

• take threats seriously - even subtle ones

• create safe pathways for reporting misconduct

• train supervisors to identify risk factors

• build a culture where violence is not minimized, excused, or brushed off

Honoring Outi means refusing to let her story fade.

It means treating workplace violence as a real, urgent safety hazard, not an afterthought or a PR problem. Her life mattered, her warnings mattered, and what happened to her must be the catalyst for meaningful change in our industry.

May Amber Czech and Outi Hicks rest in peace. May their legacies be the change we all owe them. 

Women make up only around 4% of the skilled trades. In one survey, 88% reported experiencing sexual harassment, and 31% of women construction workers said they’d been sexually assaulted at work.

Because women are such a small minority in the trades, many incidents go unreported. Out of fear of retaliation, being labeled a “problem,” or being blacklisted. Not every story is as extreme as Amber’s or Outi’s, but the risk is real and widespread. We need stronger protections, improved reporting mechanisms, more inclusive culture, and serious accountability on construction job sites to prevent these kinds of incidents. Based on research In 2019, there were 454 workplace homicides in the U.S. Of those, 88 were women.  Some victims may not report incidents, so official numbers likely underestimate the true common numbers . Thousands of women every year are victims of workplace violence at a level that can lead to injuries or time off, and many more likely experience less extreme but still harmful forms. The problem is significant. 

Everyone deserves to go to work and return home safe. These issues affect women mentally, physically, and emotionally — and sometimes, tragically, they cost lives. The Sisterhood of Trades will continue to be a megaphone for women, survivors, and anyone who needs support. We build together. We protect together. We rise together.Reach out on the Sisterhood of Trades website or social medias if you need an ear.