July 20, 2007
ANYTHING YOU CAN DO...
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Housing Works Summer Youth Program members and (far right) State Senator Montgomery |
Norene Walker, 44, has made more money in the last four years as a unionized construction worker than she has in her entire life. The formerly homeless Walker told her inspiring story at a high-energy press conference at City Hall Wednesday morning, urging Governor Eliot Spitzer to sign a bill that will help women leaving public assistance find jobs in traditionally male-dominated and higher-paying professions. "I can tell Spitzer first-hand that non-traditional employment for women works, and it should be encouraged. I'm making sustainable wages for the first time in my life," Walker said proudly.
Walker and about 60 others, including legislators, advocates from Federation of Protest Welfare Agencies, Legal Momentum and Equalilty Works, and 20 members of the Housing Works Job Training Program and Summer Youth Program, gathered on the steps of City Hall to voice support for the Nontraditional Employment and Sustainable Wages State Bill. While the legislation passed easily in both the Assembly and the Senate, New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York Public Welfare Association are encouraging Governor Eliot Spitzer to veto it. Spitzer has not indicated whether he will do so, but advocates are concerned that the governor might bow to pressure from the mayor.
The majority of people on welfare are single mothers, and they are often not encouraged to seek jobs in "non-traditional" male-dominated fields like construction, plumbing, carpentry, furniture moving and others that pay a decent living wage. The job training bill (S.3201/A.3366) that passed this year would require welfare offices to give women more information about job training programs for those higher wage, man-heavy professions. The bill also requires welfare officers to recommend more people overall for such programs.
Nail technicians vs. automotive technicians? |
Thomas and fellow Job Training Program participant Michael Korn |
Speakers at the press conference included the bill's cosponsors, State Senator Velmanette Montgomery and State Assembly Member Joan Millman, as well as State Senator Liz Krueger and City Council Member Gale Brewer. "For far too long women have been forced by local welfare service districts into low wage service industry jobs," Millman said. "Local service districts should not be allowed to cherry pick individuals to enroll in non-traditional employment programs. We must require service districts to guide a certain percentage of public assistance recipients toward sustainable wage jobs.
The facts back Millman up. A 2001 study of job training for low-income people, particularly women leaving welfare, found a clear pattern of gender segregation in job training referral and placements. Programs training for jobs as bank teller and nail technician had 100 percent female enrollment, while programs training for better-paying jobs such as appliance technician and automotive technician had overwhelming male enrollments.
Billionaire Mayor Bloomberg opposes the bill because it doesn't emphasize finding work right away, no matter how poorly the job might pay. In a letter to Spitzer, he wrote that the legislation "does not recognize the importance of finding employment even at a low wage and then increasing salary over time." Judy Thomas, 52, a member of the Housing Works job training program who is working towards becoming trained as a case manager, finds Bloomberg's reasoning absurd. "It's certainly important that women like myself receive job training," she said at Wednesday's rally. "We want to get out of the system and make more than $160 every two weeks. That's no way to live."