Bush Administration to eliminate DOL Women's Bureau

The mission of the Women's Bureau remains - as it has through all Republican and Democratic administrations since 1920 - to promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, increase their efficiency and advance their opportunities for profitable employment. The ten Regional Offices play an invaluable role in ensuring that this mission is carried out effectively at the local level. These offices provide critical services, including educating women about their legal protections against workplace abuse, providing specialized information about training programs and workplace supports to help low-income and low-skilled women, and assisting women who need language or computer assistance. These offices also play a central role in meeting the Department's own goal of helping women become self-sufficient through increasing access to non-traditional occupations.

These offices give the department important information about the policies and issues that should be addressed locally to increase women's full participation in the workforce. It is clear that the elimination of these offices would end programs that are vital and necessary.

In opposing the elimination of the offices, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said: ".... President Bush has shut down the Women's Bureau Equal Pay Program and the White House Women's Initiatives Office earlier this year. He reversed the ergonomics standard, which would have particularly helped women workers. If the Bush Administration believes that the federal government no longer needs to play a role in improving the lives of working women and their families, the President truly does not understand the exhausting challenges so many women face"

Via Breaching the Web.