For the first time in at least a decade, the House has put forward a funding bill that includes no money for the only federal agency to “represent the needs and interests of working women.”
The Women’s Bureau has been in operation since 1920, when it was founded to create policies and standards to improve conditions for women at work, helping conduct research that formed the basis of early gender-based labor laws and key legislation on fair pay and paid leave.
Today, the agency collects and analyzes data on women at work and runs several grant programs, including the Women in Apprenticeship & Nontraditional Occupations program, which last year awarded $5 million to seven organizations developing apprenticeships for women in industries where they are underrepresented. The 2023 award was the largest in the program’s history, with funds going to programs in Alabama, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington.
The bureau also supports initiatives that work to close the gender pay gap, advance paid leave policies, alleviate the child care crisis and eliminate workplace harassment. This year, it awarded $1.3 million in grants to organizations working to prevent and respond to gender-based violence and harassment against women workers, and launched the only federal database comparing child care prices at the county level.
Republicans: but does it do anything good?!?!
The Republicans are basically some anti-rights party. They want to turn the US back to the “good old times” where the wife was basically property and owning slaves was legal.
Considering a GOP controlled House, this isn’t surprising in the least. 😑
The US House of Representatives is collectively masturbating and the news media is making us all watch.
If news organizations actually cared about being honest, they’d just report “GOP HOUSE MEMBERS WASTE TIME PASSING BILLS THAT CAN NEVER BECOME LAW AGAIN TODAY” and say nothing further about it every, single day.
I think it’s important to show the country exactly what kind of bullshit Republicans want written into the law. A lot of people still haven’t figured out yet that they’re pure evil.
Republicans have a long list of enemies: women, children, veterans, poor people, old people, the disabled, LGBT people–pretty much everybody who isn’t a rich, white, right-wing Christian male. The Republicans will accept tokens, but they need to know their place.
There’s no “but” necessary there, only a “so.”
All that money, over all those years …. and I still don’t have a sandwich! 🫣
Not to minimize this concern, but I found it even more scary they also want to
The bill also eliminates the department’s International Labor Relations Board, which works to strengthen global labor standards in part by promoting racial and gender equity. It is the largest funder worldwide of programs designed to combat child labor, forced labor and human trafficking.
