Bureau of the Census:

Recruiting Lesbians and Gay Men

The Bureau of the Census is seeking to recruit lesbians and gay men for the approximately 275,000 temporary employment positions required for the census activity in April 1980. The Decennial Census will take place on April 1. The results will form the basis for reapportionment of the Congress and state legislatures as well as determining allocation formulas for more than 100 federally funded programs.

"At the suggestion of the President, I am writing you to ask your help in recruiting people for census jobs," wrote Census Bureau Recruiting Director Mikel Miller, in a letter to National Gay Task Force Co-Executive Directors Charles F. Brydon and Lucia Valeska. Mr. Mikel is seeking the names of individuals who would be interested in this work, as well as organizational contacts in each state who would recommend or refer additional people.

"In reaching out to the lesbian and gay communities, the Census Bureau appears to be making an effort to see that the personnel recruiting system does not exclude eligible members from our community," commented Brydon and Valeska. "We only wish the

Women in Politics:

Census Bureau had started this outreach last year when other community groups were first contacted. There is not much time for an effective response. Nonetheless, we urge local gay and lesbian organizations to write Mr. Miller indicating interest in the program. He will place your group in touch with the nearest Census District Office." Letters should be sent to Mikel Miller, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, Washington, D.C. 20233.

The positions range from Crew Leader ($4.50 per hour) to Enumerator ($4.20 per hour) to Clerical ($4.00 per hour or depending on task). Detailed job descriptions are available at the Census District Office nearest you or from Mr. Miller.

"With the 1980 Census, I want to open up our recruiting to as many sources as possible in order to ensure that this census contains the most accurate count of our population,” wrote President Carter in a directive to the Secretary of Commerce last March. "I am particularly concerned that we draw as many qualified census employees as possible from the neighborhoods in which the census is being done."

Gains on State and Local Levels

(HerSay)—There's good and bad news for women on the election campaign front for the 1980's.

First, the bad news. Rannie Cooper from the Women's Campaign Fund in Washington, D.C., which helps find campaign money for women running for offices, reports that, as you might have guessed, "There are no serious women contenders running for President of the United States." Cooper says the situation also looks "pretty dismal" for women contending for seats in the House of Representatives and the United States Senate.

In new York, Congress member Elizabeth Holtzman and Bess Myerson are running against each other for Senator Jacob Javits' seat in the Senate. Also contending for Senate seats are Mary Gojack from Nevada, Mary Buchanon, Secretary of State in Colorado, and Rosalie Abrams from Maryland.

Only twelve women so far are considered serious candidates for the House of Representatives. They

are Norma Bork, Ann Cerney and Bobby Fiedler from California, Lynn Cutler from Iowa, Lynn Martin and Penny Severns from Illinois, Claudine Schneider from Rhode Island, Pat Hendel from Connecticut, Jeanette Reibman from Pennsylvania, Connie Morella from Maryland, Sheila Seuss from Indiana, and Marjorie Roukema from New Jersey.

There are currently only sixteen women in the 435-seat House of Representatives, and two women among the U.S.'s 100 Senators.

Cooper says, however, that while the picture is "pretty bleak" for women on the national level, the picture is "very positive" on the state and local legislative levels. She reports that women are running for these offices in record numbers: "This has been the traditional pool from which men have risen to national level. As the ranks of women swell on the local and state levels, the logical consequence is that they will go on to fill national offices."

Draft Peace, Not People!

Women for Racial and Economic Equality is strongly opposed to the drafting of women and men into the armed forces, as well as to all other preparations for war. It is evident that war in a nuclear age stands in fundamental contradiction to the needs and hopes of all people.

War means the disruption of the lives of women, young and old, the agony of mothers who lose their children and loved ones, the impoverishment of our living conditions, the debasing of the quality of life, and the diverting of our energies from the fight for what we and our families need.

The hysteria being built up over Iran and Afghanistan to legalize the draft and this time extend it to women threatens our civil liberties and will set back our struggle for equality immensely. The drive to war requires the suppression of all opposition to the status quo. In such a climate the first casualty will be the struggle to achieve racial equality of black and other minority women.

4

Since in a nuclear war there is no survival, it is clear that the intent of the draft is to whip up a war hysteria and prepare the American people to accept so-called limited intervention in other countries. But have we forgotten so soon the cries of napalmed

children and the dehumanization and deaths of American soldiers in Vietnam?

We do not see the fight for women's equality in a vacuum. Women and men do not want to die together in war, but live together in peace. Equality to destroy our sisters and brothers in other countries will not move our struggle for equality at home one inch forward.

We call on all women and women's organizations to join with peace groups and all antiwar peoples to defeat this call to war.

Peace is essential to the fight for women's equality.

Women Lose Pay

(HerSay)—The Chicago Sun Times reports that women were paid worse in 1977 than ten years earlier. According to the newspaper, in 1967 a fulltime working woman earned just 61 cents for every dollar in a full-time working man's paycheck. By 1977, however, that figure, instead of rising, fell to 59 cents. Further, women's pay compared to men's has not changed appreciably since the 1930's.

BITS & PIECES

Boycott!

Nestle's

(HerSay)-In December, the Nestle Corporation quietly bought up one of the three largest baby food producing companies in the United States, the Beech Nut Company. Now INFACT, a coalition of church and other activist groups, says it will add all Beech Nut products to the list of Nestle's items being boycotted throughout the nation.

INFACT has been organizing the Nestle's boycott to protest what it says is a longstanding Nestle's policy of peddling infant formula to underdeveloped countries where women cannot afford to use it properly. Use of diluted or unsterilized Nestle's formula in these countries, INFACT says, has led to sickness and death among Third World babies, In spite of recommendations made by a meeting sponsored by the World Health Organization last fall, Nestle's is continuing to hand out free formula samples in Botswana and Malaysia, and has sponsored medical conferences in Africa.

INFACT is asking Americans to boycott all products made by the newly-bought Beech Nut Company, among them Beech Nut baby foods, Beech Nut coffees, Tetley Tea, Table-Talk Pies, and Care-Free sugarless gums.

Farmworkers

Farmworkers in Ohio have called for 3-way negotiations between tomato processors, growers and pickers. The main processors in Northwestern Ohio, Libby and Campbell, have refused to negotiate, claiming they have no responsibility to those who pick tomatoes for their products. Conditions for farmworkers cannot improve when the processors who control the pricing of tomatoes refuse to negotiate. We urge our readers to honor the Farm Labor Organizing Committee's boycott of all Libby and Campbell products, including the following: All products with the Libby label

All products of Libby's parent company Nestle: Taster's Choice

Nescafe and Nestea

Swiss Knight Cheese Stouffers

All Campbell's Soup products, and V-8 Juice

Franco-American products Pepperidge Farm products Vlasic brand Recipe Pet Food

"Woman Linkage”

(HerSay)-Chicago's League of Black Women, a 500-member feminist organization, says one of its main goals is to form a "woman linkage" between both black and white feminists.

League President Barbara Proctors says that in the beginning the feminist movement turned black women off because they didn't feel they had much in common with white women. Today, however, Proctor says, "Black and white women can help each other. So many of the economic and political problems facing women transcend race."

Proctor says the League, which was founded in 1972 as a charitable and educational organization, has met with NOW and the League of Women Voters in an effort to form a woman linkage with political clout. Says Proctor, "Women of both races are known as boiler room workers; they do the nuts and bolts work, mostly for men. We want to do more. We want to tie our clout to concrete impact on elected officials."

February, 1980/What She Wants/Page 5

!