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February 11, 2010
We need Women for Construction Town Hall Meeting Wed. 2/17 in SF
Pat Shiu, the New Director of OFCCP, the federal agency that monitors the number of women on federal construction projects, is in town to hear you.
We are hoping for at least 50 tradeswomen to attend this hearing. (Wear your hard hat and bring another out-of-work sister tradeswomen.)
Town Hall Session with OFCCP Director Patricia Shiu,
Wednesday February 17, 2-4 pm
San Francisco Public Library,
30 Grove Street, Koret Auditorium, San Francisco, CA 94102
If you want to speak, you will be able to. You will need to fill out a speaker card at the meeting and you will be given just two minutes so we suggest that you choose one topic from the list below.
1. Have you worked on a site that had to meet goals for women? Share that experience.
2. How often have you been the only woman on your site? In your craft? Share that experience.
3. Get the government to enforce the 6.9% goal for women! It’s your tax money too!
4. Tell your own story. How could government monitoring help you and your sisters?
The OFCCP would like to know if you’re coming and so would we: RSVP to Tradeswomen meg@tradeswomen.org and to OFCCP winslow.lynda@dol.gov
See you on Wednesday. Come with your hardhat, bring your sisters, support the speakers even if you don’t want to speak.
About the OFCCP
The OFCCP is an important player in the entry process for women in the building trades. Many women got their start in construction during the 1970’s and 1980’s due to the OFCCP’s enforcement of Executive Order 11246 requiring that federal construction contractors provide equal opportunity in all construction trades. Many tradeswomen owe their access to health care, to pensions, to equal pay, and good jobs to the OFCCP. Since the passage of the anti-affirmative action California Proposition 209, federal projects have been one of the few venues where contractors have had to account for the failure to include women on their jobs. Despite the success of the women who have endured in the trades, we still have a construction workforce from which women are almost entirely excluded. With a new President and a new direction to the administration, we have a new opportunity to reopen access for women to future good construction careers.
The OFCCP is considering new rules for the implementation of Affirmative Action Requirements. Please come and tell your story. Ask the Director to enhance the regulations and ensure that new generation of women will be given a chance. Each speaker will have 2 minutes.
Tradeswomen Inc. is asking that the OFCCP
• Ensure the monitoring and enforcement of the goals for women on federal projects
• Provide real consequences to contractors for failure to meet the goals, including withholding payments until all issues are resolved.
• Increase real-time workforce reporting, day-one monitoring, community input, and on-site monitoring liaison,
• Partner with Tradeswomen Inc. and other non-profits to improve their effectiveness
• Prioritize the necessary resources to end the exclusion of women from these jobs.
Come speak, be a part of the audience, support us. See you next Wednesday!