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Tradeswomen
Now and Tomorrow (TNT)
A
national coalition of tradeswomen's organizations and advocates
June
18, 2003
RE: Critical funding for Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional
Occupations (WANTO) Act
Dear Labor, HHS and Education Appropriations Subcommittee Member:
We are a diverse group of organizations joining together to ask you to
support efforts in the House and Senate Appropriations Committees to
restore funding for a very modest, but vitally important program – the
Women in Apprenticeship and Nontraditional Occupations (WANTO) Act.
Enacted in 1992 (PL 102-530), WANTO has used its funding to award 71
grants to employers, nonprofit organizations and labor unions to help
them recruit,
train and retain women in non-traditional, high-wage/high-demand jobs. The
benefits here are not only to the women, but also to the employers who
are looking to fill skilled jobs for which there are not available workers.
Over the course of its decade-long history, the program has been responsible
for awarding 71 technical assistance grants that have been used to encourage
innovative approaches and partnerships in an effort to move more women
into jobs that pay wages that will allow them to support themselves and
their families.
Funded at just $1 million annually, this small program has achieved impressive
results. Women who have had access to projects funded by WANTO grants
were 47 percent more likely to enter a high-wage/high-demand, nontraditional
occupation than those woman who did not have access to such programs.
Increasing women’s access to high-wage/high-demand, nontraditional
jobs is a compelling strategy for achieving family economic self-sufficiency. These
jobs typically offer good benefits and wages that are between 20-30 percent
higher than jobs in which women traditionally are clustered.
For these reasons, we were disappointed to see that the Administration
chose not to renew funding for WANTO in its FY 2004 budget. It now
is up to Congress not only to restore the funding, but to increase it to
$5 million annually so that the program can fund even more grantees who
want to participate in the effort to help women get on the path to economic
independence. With funding of just $1 million in fiscal 2003, just
one in five grant applications could be funded. Given the level
of success this program has enjoyed, we believe it deserves a relatively
small
increase in funding, as proposed here.
Please contact Wider Opportunities for Women if you have any questions
or want additional information. You can reach WOW at 202/464-1596.
Sincerely,
- Alaska Works Partnership, Inc. Anchorage, AK
- Arizona Women's Education & Employment, Inc., (AWEE)