CWW: Banks Asked to "Show Cause

Cleveland Women Working's campaign for more equal and fair treatment for women and minority employees in the banking industry has brought about official government warnings to two Cleveland banks from the Department of Labor. The "show cause" notice issued to Union Commerce Bank in late August described deficiencies in their Affirmative Action Plan, which must be remedied. The notice to National City Bank issued in mid-September went one step further: as well as listing deficiencies in their plan, the bank was promised an on-site investigation in the near future.

These actions against the banks were the result of formal charges filed with the Department of Labor's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) on July 6 when CWW released a 90-page study of the five largest Cleveland banks.

While the "show cause" notices, as they are currently being used by the government, relate to written affirmative action plans, the on site"

investigation of National City Bank is to check out how affirmative action works in practice. Therefore, federal investigators will have open access personnel files and the right to confidential interviews with all employees they choose.

Cleveland Women Working is preparing case studies and plans to monitor the investigation closely. "CWW believes that the investigation of National City Bank could set an important precedent and result in real on-the-job improvements for women and minorities," Carol Kurtz, staff coordinator of CWW's Banking Committee continued. "National City Bank must stop taking advantage of their female and minority employees. They are one of the most profitable banks in the U.S. and have a social responsibility to improve their employment practices. As a profitable and powerful institution, they not only should do this, they certainly can afford to."

BOOS, BRAVOS, AND TIDBITS

BRAVO to J. Elizabeth Kennan, who was inaugur ated as President of Mt. Holyoke College on October 7. With her inauguration all of the "Seven Sisters" colleges on the East Coast, colleges established 100 years ago to produce women leaders, will for the first time in history all be led by women. (At this astounding rate of progress, we should have 50 percent women in Congress by the year 2300!)

TIDBIT: Financial columnist Sylvia Porter reports that the American housewife is worth at least $11,000 a year. A housewife performs at least 12 different occupations in the course of working 12 to 14 hours a day without any pay in dollar terms. Her work, says Porter, can easily be translated into a minimum of 99.6 hours of hard work per week, or at least $11,607 a year at today's minimum wage of $2.65 an hour.

Wisconsin, a state which has ratified ERA.

TIDBIT: Working Woman magazine says a 1976 study of six philanthropic foundations whose assets were derived primarily from the sale of cosmetics to women, discovered that less than five percent of the foundation dollars went to women's programs. The foundations surveyed were set up by Avon Products, Estee Lauder, Revlon, Edna McConnell Clark, Charle H. Revson and Helena Rubinstein.

BRAVO to a U.S. District Court judge in Fremont, California, who has ordered General Motors to pay $187,000 to 2,200 women who claimed they suffered discrimination at GM's assembly plant there in the areas of promotions, medical services, use of restrooms and protective clothing. The award is an out-of-court settlement of a suit filed four years ago by six of the women, who were joined by the Federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the United Auto Workers, and various equal opportunity advocates.

BRAVO to the Illinois Nurses' Association, which will hold its 1979 convention outside Illinois to protest the state legislature's failure to ratify the ERA. Instead, the convention will be held in SWEET HONEY IN THE ROCK (continued from p. 11) Audience feedback will be crucial to our process of hringing "Sweet Honey" to Cleveland. Please feel free to share your reactions with us via phone, mail, etc. We also are planning an informal get-together with "Sweet Honey" for the women's community. Time and date are not yet firm, but check with our ticket outlets or the Oven office for information.

We would like to warmly invite the general public to this opening concert. Free childcare will be provided please call one week in advance of the concert so we will know how many children to expect.

Please Note Our Changes in Prices

$1.00 Under 12 and over 60

$3.50 -To groups of 10 or more

This is a new idea for Oven. We would like to encourage women's groups, groups of friends, families to consider this option. Tickets can be purchased in blocks of ten tickets at $3.50, or $35.00 for the block, in advance. Any purchaser is free to re-sell tickets if she/they choose, but the intent is to provide less expensive tickets. We would hope that any re-sales would fall within the price range here, and that this new way of handling tickets would get more tickets into circulation. Please contact Oven if you or your group would be interested in group tickets. Deadline for purchase of group tickets is Friday, November 21. No reserved

seats.

$4.00 Advance tickets. Available at our ticket outlets:

Coventry Books 1824 Coventry Six Steps Down -4241 Lorain Ave.

Rape Crisis Center -3201 Euclid WomenSpace.. 1258 Euclid Tish's Shoe Repair -15603 Madison Food Communities 12408 Euclid $5.00 Admission at the door.

Particularly in view of our move to raise ticket prices for this concert, Oven Productions would like to outline and clarify our work-exchange program. Work exchange is a plan Oven instituted to enable women who cannot afford to pay for tickets to work in exchange for the admission price. We want to state again that our intent is not to deny access to any of our events because the cost is prohibitive to any woman. Our ticket prices reflect our own costs, which we attempt to make public through this paper. and these costs are rising continually. We also think it makes more sense to raise ticket prices for events women enjoy rather than keep them down and have to depend so heavily on donations. We also do not think our prices are out of line given the kind of money that is spent on other forms of entertainmen Work exchange works like this Two weeks in advance of any event, any woman can call Oven and request work exchange. There are many kinds of work to do in exchange for a ticket mostly day ol the concert jobs, like helping with tickets or lobby, astising tee, aicinns, selling T-shirts. Other jobs are distibut: & posters, selling tickets, helping at post concert parties. Women in the past have set up a regular arrangement with Oven so that they would dù the same job at each event in exchange for admission. We welcome the belp, and we want to encourage any woman who needs a work exchange for "Sweet Honey in the Rock" immediately.

to contact us