By Joan Crigger
July 4, 2011

The Women Mayors’ Caucus met during the 79th Annual Conference of Mayors to learn about innovative ideas for creating jobs for women. Guest speakers were Jane Oates, Assistant Secretary for Employment and Training at the U.S. Department of Labor, and Julie Castro Abrams, CEO for the Women‘s Initiative in Oakland (CA).

Prior to the business portion of the meeting, Women Mayors’ Chair and Hallandale Beach (FL) Mayor Joy Cooper introduced out-going Conference of Mayors President and Burnsville (MN) Mayor Elizabeth B. Kautz. Kautz thanked the Women Mayors for their support over the past year and a half and encouraged them to continue to play a leadership role in the organization. Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran also spoke to the Caucus about the end of Kautz’s tenure and about the how the Women Mayors, for the first time ever, endorsed a candidate when Kautz ran for Second Vice President.

Following their remarks, the Nominating Committee presented its recommendations for the positions of Chair and Vice Chair of the Women Mayors. Current Vice Chair Miramar (FL) Mayor Lori Moseley was elected Chair and Monrovia (CA) Mayor Mary Ann Lutz was elected Vice Chair.

After the election, Oates began her remarks by stressing how important it is for women mayors to help young women because women still earn only 78 cents on the dollar compared to men. She said that young women still don’t go into STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) careers except on a limited basis, while pay for those careers is much higher than the $46,000 average salary of teachers where women are prevalent.

Oates went on to say that although many women mayors serve on their local Workforce Development Boards (WIBs), more need to be involved in order to make use of this key economic development tool. She stated that Labor Market Information, one of the many pieces of information provided by the WIBs, is the number one key to moving local labor markets.

According to Oates, another important vehicle for assisting women is through federal contracting. She indicated that many small businesses, especially in smaller cities, are women and minority owned and don’t take advantage of federal contracting. Oates stated that because of some past discrimination, new Equal Employment Regulations do not allow companies to continue to contract with the same contractor but must give women and minority-owned businesses an equal chance to become contractors. Federal contracting is now wide open for women contractors.

Oates also suggested that perhaps Labor Secretary Hilda Solis would be willing to have semi-annual conference calls with women mayors, particularly about jobs and job creation.

Abrams then spoke about jobs in the Bay Area and how the Women’s Initiative was working to increase the number of women-owned businesses there. The Women’s Initiative does this by helping women entrepreneurs develop business plans, make loan applications, and by connecting them to those already in business so that they will have experienced mentors. She stated that one of the biggest struggles for these women-owned businesses is not their lack of entrepreneurial spirit, but lack of education and sophistication.

Abrams went on to say that the Women’s Initiative was working with Oates at the Department of Labor and with the Small Business Administration to provide loans to women-owned businesses, especially to those women with the highest barriers.