Women's Studies Released 2008 Concerning Women In Construction

Road to GOOD Jobs Study
Released September 30, 2008
CONSTRUCTION JOBS STILL GROWING, BUT OPPORTUNITIES PASSING OVER WOMEN, AFRICAN-AMERICANS.

This year's study, Road to Good Jobs: Patterns of Employment in the Construction Industry, evaluates the construction workforce in the nation's 25 largest metro areas and shows that women and minorities are least likely to receive the benefit of construction jobs. The report, an expansion of last year’s first-ever such study, also notes that building public transit and maintaining highways would create more – and greener – jobs than building highways.

The 25 metropolitan areas, listed by population, are New York, NY, Los Angeles, CA, Chicago, IL, Philadelphia, PA, Dallas, Miami, Washington (DC), Houston, Detroit, Boston, Atlanta, San Francisco, Riverside (CA), Phoenix, Seattle, Minneapolis, San Diego, St. Louis, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Tampa, Denver, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Portland, OR.
http://transportationequity.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=81&Itemid=1


From the Ground Up: Building Opportunities for Women in Construction
by Jennifer K. Brown and Francoise Jacobsohn
Legal Momentum, July 2008

In July 2008, Legal Momentum published From the Ground Up: Building Opportunities for Women in Construction, a report on our ground-breaking conference, Women re:BUILD NY, which brought leaders from all segments of the construction industry together with tradeswomen to focus on making equal opportunity a reality for women in the construction trades
http://www.legalmomentum.org/site/DocServer/womenrebuildconfbro_final.pdf?docID=3921


Women Business Owners Blocked from Fair Access to Federal Contracts
Released January 21, 2008

The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce unifies the collective
strength of women to leverage our position as the most influential
economic force in America. With over 500,000 members, the USWCC
advances economic opportunities for women across America.

The U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce delivers this report to
Congress with a great sense of urgency. For more than a decade the
federal government has not met the paltry five-percent goal for
contracting with women-owned small businesses (WOSB).

Even today, as women own nearly thirty percent of all firms in
America, the federal government lags behind in doing business with
women. Women lose between five and six billion dollars every year as
the federal government fails to meet the low five percent mark. And
the openly unsupportive attitude that is exhibited by the SBA only
serves to continue a sad tradition of failure within the government
contracting ranks.

I ask you to intercede on behalf of the millions of women business
owners – their families, their employees, and their communities – who
are being blocked from fair access to federal contracts. The SBA should
withdraw the most recent proposed rule and Congress should pass the
legislation completed by H.R. 1873 (Sec. 201) which raises the goal for
contracting with WOSB’s to a more appropriate eight-percent and H.R.
3867 (Sec. 301) which provides clear language for the implementation
of the women’s federal procurement program. This action would set
the stage for strong advances in the fair access to federal contracts by
women-owned small businesses.

Respectfully,
Margot Dorfman, CEO
U.S. Women’s Chamber of Commerce
http://www.uswcc.org/report.pdf


More links of interest:

The Working Poor Families Project
http://www.workingpoorfamilies.org/

Center for Women and Work
http://www.cww.rutgers.edu/