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Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
For more information call: 202/219-6631.
On the heels of the Working Women Count! initiative, the
Women's Bureau of the Department of Labor will host a conference May 19-20,
bringing together hundreds of women from around the country to help make work
better for women.
Among the topics to be addressed at the Washington, D.C.
conference will be child and elder care, flex-time, fair pay, pensions, the
glass ceiling, family leave policies, the 40-hour work week, women's education
and training opportunities and the minimum wage. Information about the
conference, Working Women Count! Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow, is available
to the public toll-free at 1-800-347-3741.
"Today, women are nearly half of America's workforce, and
almost every woman will work for pay at some time in her life," Women's Bureau
Director Karen Nussbaum said. "For 75 years, the Women's Bureau has been
addressing women's changing needs -- from the sweatshops of the 1920's to the
days of Rosie the Riveter to the present. At this historic moment, the Women's
Bureau is bringing women together to develop effective strategies for change."
The conference will include keynote addresses by First
Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich and Unita
Blackwell, the first African American woman ever to serve as mayor in
Mississippi. Other speakers will include Arnold Hiatt of Stride Rite, Dolores
Huerta of the United Farm Workers Union and Mary Frances Berry, who chairs the
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.
Conference participants can take part in one of three
tracks: pay and benefits; work and family; or valuing women and women's work.
Each includes a series of in-depth workshops. Among the experts scheduled to
lead workshops are Hawaii Congresswoman Patsy Mink, 9to5 Executive Director
Ellen Bravo, Women's Legal Defense Fund President Judith Lichtman and Families
and Work Institute Co-President Ellen Galinsky.
Founded by Congress in 1920 with a mandate to "promote the
welfare of wage earning women," the Women's Bureau worked with industry leaders
in the 1940's to encourage the development of child care centers, pressed for
greater access for women to employment and training programs in the 1970's, and
continues to work on these and other issues today.
Last year, the Women's Bureau launched Working Women
Count!, a national initiative through which more than a quarter of a million
women told policymakers what they like and don't like about their jobs. Earlier
this month, President Clinton accepted a set of 14 policy recommendations
designed to address the concerns women raised. Among those recommendations was
a series of community forums on child care, which the Women's Bureau will hold
around the country this spring and summer.
Archived News Release--Caution:
information may be out of date.
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