women and employment-

The following three pieces of news are taken from "Ohio Report: News from the Women's Services of Ohio Bureau of Employment Services".

women's bureau upgraded

Secretary of Labor Ray Marshall recently announced that the Women's Bureau, for the first time in its 57-year history, will design, develop and monitor several pilot projects to improve the training and employment of women.

The projects, made possible through approximately $2 million in Employment and Training Administration (ETA) funds, will focus on teenage women, mature women, low-income women, minority women and rural women. Half of the funds will be expended for youth programs.

The announcement was made at a ceremony marking the transfer of the Women's Bureau from the Employment Standards Administration to Secretary marshall's office, effective January 1.

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Marshall pointed out that the Department is trying to encourage women to take "nontraditional" jobs and recently set standards to increase the number of women in construction. Calling the concerns of wage-earning women "increasingly important, Marshall said that 55 percent of women 18 and 65 are now in the labor force, and this change in traditional working patterns adds significance to the role of the Women's Bureau.

Women's Bureau Director Alexis M. Herman said that the new position of the bureau not only provides greater flexibility, but will also "enable the Department (of Labor) to have a greater impact upon meeting the needs of women workers, particularly those who are disadvantaged in the labor market."'

news bulletin for jobseekers

Occupations in Demand, the new monthly jobs bulletin published by the U.S. Employment Service, represents the first large-scale national effort to tell jobseekers what types of jobs are most often available, how much they pay, and where they are located. Since publication began in June 1977, the monthly bulletin's circulation has soared to 100,000. Jobs listed in Occupations in Demand are ones in which large numbers of openings were listed with

the public employment service during the previous month. While there is no guarantee that a suitable job is currently open in each occupation and location listed, the odds are that if an area had a fairly sizable number of openings in a particular job last month, then it may have some comparable listings this month.

Job openings are grouped by the following occupational categories: professional, technical and managerial; clerical and sales; service; farming, fishing, forestry and related occupations; processing; machine trades; bench work; structural work; and miscellaneous occupations.

An extra edition of Occupations in Demand, designed specifically for students and recent graduates just entering the labor market, was recently published to help these young people make a better-informed career and job search decision. To obtain copies of the monthly Occupations in Demand, contact the nearest Job Service office or write: USES Office of Technical Support (Attn: TET), ETA/DOL, 601 D Street, N.W., Washington, D.C., 20213.

what to do about discrimination

You may file charges of unlawful discrimination if, for reasons of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, handicap or ancestry: (1) you have been refused a job, have been fired, or have not been promoted; (2) you have not been able to use an employment agency; (3) you have been refused membership in a labor organization; (4) you have knowledge of such unlawful employment practices; (5) you have been denied admission or equal use of places of public accomodations where the advantages, facilities or privileges are available to the public; (6) you have been unable to obtain housing, including vacant land, or have been discriminated against in the terms or conditions of such housing; (7) you are aware of panic selling (block-busting) practices. Victims of alleged unlawful discrimination can file a charge at one of the six regional offices of the Ohio Civil Rights Commission listed below:

Northwest Regional Office 510 Gardner Building 506 Madison and Superior Toledo, Ohio 43604 (419) 241-9164

Anti-Bakke Demonstration Blacked Out

On April 15, a demonstration was held in Washington, D.C. organized by the National Committee to Overturn the Bakke Decision (NCOBD). 35,000 angry Black, white, Latin, and Asian women and men marched on the Capitol demanding that affirmative action programs be maintained and/or improved and that any claims of "reverse discrimination" be looked upon as racist and sexist,

Alan Bakke is a 37-year-old white engineer who sued the medical school of the University of California at Davis for "reverse discrimination". He claimed that those students admitted under the minority admissions program had lower test scores than he, making him a victim of discrimination. The California State Supreme Court ruled in his favor, and now it is up to the U.S. Supreme Court to decide.

The effect of the Bakke case on women was addressed by Claudette Furlonge, coordinator of the Women's Focus of the New York NCOBD: "The Bakke' decision is such a crucial issue to women because affirmative action programs were just beginning to make a dent. Traditionally, jobs for women have been low-paying, routine, menial, a dead end, and the job discrimination faced by women of color is ten times worse."

The demonstration was the largest and the most militant against racism this country has seen since the 1960's, yet the media censored it from public knowledge.

SORRY MR. BAKKE-

But you were DISPLACED BY YOUNG Men Better ENDOWED-1 Mean, QUALIFIED

"Affirmative action was a guaranty that we would be able to break out of those racist, sexist chains / wi that have kept up at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder," she concluded.

ZATION NEWS SERVICE

--Pat Hilliard

Southwest Regional Office Commerce Building 100 East Eighth Street Cincinnati, Ohio 45202 (513) 852-3344

North Southwest Regional Office

222 Grant-Deneau Building 40 West Fourth Street Dayton, Ohio 45402

Northeast Regional Office 680 Rockefeller Building 614 West Superior Cleveland, Ohio 44113 (216) 579-2800.

Southeast Regional Office 220 Parsons Avenue Columbus, Ohio 43215 (614) 466-5928 South Northeast Regional Office

302 Peoples Federal Building 32 East Market Street

Akron, Ohio 44308 (216) 253-3167

women in demand for armed forces

New York (LNS)--Although the U.S. armed forces have long been an all-male preserve, the Defense Department is now trying to change the laws which restrict women from serving in combat for the Navy and Air Force.

The Department of Defense, well-known for its entrenched male chauvinism and hardly a champion of equal rights, says its main reason for requesting the change at this time is simply that it is running out of men. To compensate for an expected 23 percent decline in the male pool available for military duty in the coming years, the Defense Department hopes to double the number of women in the forces in the next five years.

By 1983, the number of women in the armed forces is expected to rise from the present figure of 6.5 percent to over 11 percent.

The Army, which has been using women in nursing and other non-combat occupations for over 100 years, has now started moving some women into air defense missile units and has put others behind the controls of combat helicopters, though not in combat units.

For now, Defense officials are down-playing the issue of women actually going into combat until the necessary legal changes clear Congress. But once the bills are passed, women too will enjoy the pleasures of flying combat helicopters and aircraft and even working in the launch crews for intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Displaced Homemakers Bill

(Her Say)--Women who are separated, divorced or widowed and find themselves without financial support would be able to qualify for jobs and job training under a new bill approved recently by a Senate subcommittee.

The Senate Employment Poverty and Migratory Labor Subcommittee has reported out a bill that would extend the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) for four more years.

Under a provision in the bill, a program for what the Senate is calling "displaced homemakers" would establish funds for employment training and child care services to women who, for one reason or another, are no longer living with their husbands and find themselves unable to be "gainfully" employed.

The bill is scheduled for consideration soon before the Senate Human Resources Committee.

PageA/June 1978/ What She Wants"