Repost: Shiu Dusts off 1980 Goal for Women in Trades

By Anna Halkidis

WeNews correspondent
Wednesday, April 3, 2013

Thirty-plus years have passed. Now the director of federal contract compliance for the Department of Labor is focused on getting U.S. women a 7-percent piece of all skilled trade jobs performed, a goal first set in 1980.

Patricia Shiu at a March event in New York City.

Credit: Anna HalkidisNEW YORK (WOMENSENEWS)--The main attraction at a recent national tradeswomen's gathering here wasPatricia Shiu, a labor department official in a position to help if more women would just tell her office what's going on.

"We have their backs," Shiu said of affected women. "But we need to hear their voices."

Some at the meeting took the cue and spoke up.

Leah Rambo is director of training at the Nicholas Maldarelli Training Center, in Queens, N.Y., which educates sheet metal workers. She told the crowd that contractors have specifically asked her not to send female workers to their site.

Shiu, as director of federal contract compliance for the U.S. Department of Labor, which legally enforces equal employment opportunities for women, said her office is ready to hear from female workers who feel they have suffered discrimination.

Before President Barack Obama appointed her in 2009, Shiu, a lawyer, spent 26 years working on employment discrimination cases for the Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center in San Francisco.

She came to the gathering of tradeswomen and their advocates, held here in late March, ready to show she understood the common problems that women on construction sites say they face: unwanted attention, being monitored more than male counterparts, receiving menial tasks.

"Women suffer all types of repercussions, harassment and discrimination," Shiu said.

And then there's the problem of women getting few of the jobs under federal contract.

Shiu is adamant about doing something about that. Her goal is to increase the current 2.6 percent of women in trade jobs performed under the federal contracting process to 6.9 percent; a figure promised by the Labor Department in 1980, but never accomplished.

To read the full article, visit http://womensenews.org.

OFCCP Ends Rigid Pay Discrimination Investigation Procedures

Report from Legal Momentum's newsletter on new policy with OFCCP that will improve their ability to fight pay discrimination.
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OFCCP Ends Rigid Pay Discrimination Investigation Procedures
The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) has announced the rescission of Bush-era policies that had been hindering the investigation of pay discrimination claims under Executive Order 11246.  At the same time, Director Patricia Shiu has issued new guidance on how to investigate such claims.  

Legal Momentum advocated for these changes, as the former policies were too rigid and required more than what is required under Title VII principles to establish proof of discrimination.  This rescission and new guidance restores much-needed flexibility for OFCCP investigators to effectively investigate and then rectify compensation discrimination when found.  Eradicating pay discrimination benefits women, their families, and the nation's economy.  For more information about the rescission and the new policy directive, please visit here.

Patricia Shiu of Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs Speaks at Summit on Women in Construction

Office of Federal Contract Compliance Director Pat Shiu addressed the crowd at the New York Collaboration for Women in Construction's Working on Equal Terms: A Summit on Women in Construction on Monday, March 8, International Women's Day.
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Thank you and good afternoon.

We meet at a critical time in our history, when our economy is recovering from the greatest setback it has faced since the Great Depression. And as we continue on the path to recovery there is much good news to share. Very good news.

OFCCP Director Pat Shiu
opens the Working on 
Equal Terms Summit in 
New York, New York on 
March 18 - Photo by
Joan Roth

For three straight years now, our economy has added private sector jobs every month – that's a total of 6.35 million jobs. Unemployment has fallen to its lowest level since just before President Obama took office.

In the last two years, the construction sector has added 306,000 jobs – half of that increase happened in the past five months. And while there is much more we need to do, there is no denying that we are moving in the right direction.

So, when I say that the timing of this gathering is critical, it's because the valve is opening again. Jobs are beginning to flow at an ever-accelerating pace. And, if I may use just one more construction-related pun, it's time to strike while the iron is hot.

The question before us today is: what kind of recovery will this be? Will it be one that simply returns us to where we were before 2008? Will the sort of record-breaking numbers we are seeing on Wall Street right now actually have a positive impact on the lives of most Americans? Will we end up repeating the mistakes that got us into this mess in the first place?

Or, will the sobering experience of the Great Recession finally move us in a new direction, one which prioritizes greater opportunity for all our citizens, a true rising tide that expands and strengthens the middle class?

If the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, are we, at long last, prepared to do things differently now?

That is the central question before us today. It's why this conversation is so important.

Read Patricia Shiu's full speech at www.dol.gov/ofccp or view pictures from this event.