[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 138 (Wednesday, September 28, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: September 28, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                               EPIC AWARD

 Mr. SIMON. Mr. President, I am proud to be able to announce 
Women Employed as the first recipient of the Exemplary Public Interest 
Contribution [EPIC] Award presented by the Department of Labor.
  It is not surprising that this outstanding community organization is 
based in Chicago, IL. And although Women Employed is well known for its 
grassroots efforts, it also has a widely respected national role as the 
lead advocacy organization on equal employment opportunity issues.
  Mr. President, I ask to include into the Record following my remarks 
a statement by Women Employed that highlights why Anne Ladky, Nancy 
Krieter, and all the other hard working women at Women Employed are 
deserving of this first EPIC Award.
  My sincere congratulations and best wishes.
  The statement follows:

              1994 Exemplary Public Interest [EPIC] Award


                              introduction

       In the twenty-one years since its founding, Women Employed 
     has played a critical role in many of the most important 
     advances in women's employment rights and opportunities. WE 
     began in 1973 as an advocacy organization aimed at improving 
     working conditions and combatting discrimination in Chicago's 
     downtown business district. Today, Women Employed is the 
     foremost grassroots advocate for effective federal equal 
     opportunity programs and a vital source of assistance for 
     thousands of women seeking better opportunities. As Chicago's 
     largest working women's organization, WE provides an 
     extensive range of career development and job search services 
     for its 1600 members.
       Women Employed has long been recognized as the leading 
     national monitor of the performance of the OFCCP and a key 
     analyst of its policies.
       Women Employed's role is unique because we combine our 
     perspective as a representative of working women with 
     extensive technical knowledge of the Executive Order and 
     OFCCP. Since 1976, Women Employed has been responsible for 
     convening regular meetings between the leading national civil 
     rights and women's groups and every Secretary of Labor, 
     Assistant Secretary of Labor (ESA), Solicitor of Labor and 
     OFCCP Director in order to shape effective public policy. 
     WE consults regularly with regional and national OFCCP 
     staff to develop and refine regulatory issues, enforcement 
     initiatives and recommendations for improving compliance 
     review activity. Women Employed brings a critically needed 
     grassroots view to its role in providing comprehensive 
     technical research and analysis on women's EEO issues. We 
     are called upon by Congress to testify about the 
     effectiveness of affirmative action as well as OFCCP's 
     mandate to enforce the Executive Order.
       Women Employed was instrumental in negotiating affirmative 
     action policies in major Chicago financial institutions and 
     insurance companies, in response to working women's 
     complaints about inaccessibility to promotions and higher-
     paying jobs. We worked closely with OFCCP staff to develop 
     the concept of targeting industries for review and applying 
     an affected class analysis to determine remedies for 
     thousands of victims of discrimination. The organization was 
     a key resource for Carter administration officials charged 
     with reorganizing federal equal opportunity agencies; we 
     documented the need for consolidating all federal agency 
     contract compliance activities into the OFCCP, a proposal 
     which was adopted and implemented. WE worked closely with 
     OFCCP, the Secretaries of Labor, and Congress to preserve the 
     Executive Order when serious efforts to abolish it were 
     initiated in the 1980's.
       In 1989, Women Employed worked with the Solicitor's Office 
     to reach a $14 million back pay settlement in the Harris Bank 
     case, the largest back pay settlement ever secured under the 
     Executive Order. The Harris Bank case, developed and filed by 
     WE in 1974, involved discriminatory hiring, placement, pay 
     and promotion practices. WE's documentation of the bank's 
     practices, our development of key anecdotal and statistical 
     evidence, and fourteen years of persistent pressure resulted 
     in remedies for 8000 women and minorities. The case 
     established the validity of third party representation on 
     behalf of large numbers of victims whose anonymity was 
     protected; it also upheld the legal principle underpinning 
     the requirement of backpay under the Executive Order. The 
     methodology developed in this case continues to be applied in 
     reviews of all types of federal contractors where class-wide 
     discrimination is uncovered by OFCCP.
       Women Employed has successfully brought together 
     constituency groups and federal contractors to explore 
     effective approaches to improve equal opportunity practices 
     and increase employment access for women and minorities.
       Women Employed has implemented a model partnership between 
     women's and civil rights groups and corporations who are 
     major federal contractors as well as leaders in EEO and 
     affirmative action. Chicago Area Partnership (CAPS), composed 
     of thirteen corporations with national headquarters or 
     substantial operations in Chicago, local civil rights and 
     women's organizations, and the Region V OFCCP staff holds 
     monthly meetings that have resulted in on-going and frank 
     dialogue about human resource challenges. The beginning 
     phases included lively discussions concerning our 
     perspectives of and biases about each other, development 
     of a list of cutting-edge issues the group was interested 
     in pursuing, and an executive examination of the crucial 
     elements of mobility and diversity. CAPS fulfills two 
     significant purposes. First, it brings together important 
     players to network and communicate different perspectives 
     and practices. Second, it provides opportunities to 
     collaborate on specific EEO/HR projects. CAPS has 
     committed to undertake three specific projects: creating a 
     ``best practices'' document focusing on glass ceiling 
     issues, improving linkages with community-based 
     organizations to provide entry level employment 
     opportunities, and collaboration on federal EEO regulatory 
     reform. The group intends to become a model for productive 
     collaboration that can be replicated nationally. OFCCP's 
     participation has encouraged CAPS in this direction.
       Women Employed is an excellent source of qualified female 
     applicants for federal contractors seeking to meet 
     affirmative action requirements.
       The organization is the largest provider of career 
     development and job search services to women in the Chicago 
     metropolitan area. We maintain an on-going job bank available 
     at no charge to our 1,600 members which lists federal 
     contractors' current job openings. Our Career Development 
     Network links members currently employed in major companies 
     in all industries at all employment levels with members who 
     are job-seeking or considering career changes. We offer job 
     search seminars and career awareness programs to our members 
     and the general public.
       Keys To Success, a pre-employment training program serving 
     approximately 100 women annually, enables displaced 
     homemakers to make the transition into the paid workforce, 
     and provides highly motivated job candidates to Chicago-area 
     employers. Keys To Success offers employers, including 
     federal contractors, a job placement service that sends 
     employers only pre-screened candidates, provides quick access 
     to a pool of highly motivated candidates, and lowers employee 
     turnover.
       We build relationships with Chicago area employers to offer 
     them a pool of qualified female candidates while helping 
     women find economically self-sufficient employment. Our job 
     developer works closely with federal contractors seeking 
     female and minority candidates for a variety of positions.
       We especially promote and encourage non-traditional 
     opportunities for women seeking employment, pre-
     apprenticeship programs, or other training and apprenticeship 
     programs. Women Employed leads a statewide effort to increase 
     the participation of women in training programs leading to 
     employment in non-traditional occupations. We are also 
     designing a pre-technical training program for women to be 
     launched on a pilot basis in the fall of 1994. We anticipate 
     that program graduates will be able to fill the need for 
     qualified applicants for entry-level technical and mechanical 
     jobs.


                               conclusion

       Over the past two decades, Women Employed has played a 
     unique role in promoting equal employment opportunity. Our 
     advocacy at both the national and local levels has helped 
     numerous OFCCP administrations shape effective public policy. 
     We have built strong relationships with federal contractors 
     in an effort to encourage voluntary programs to improve equal 
     opportunity practices and increase employment access for 
     women and minorities. Women Employed has provided thousands 
     of working women with training, counseling and job referral 
     services.

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