|
During her talk she outlined five goals
that she has implemented to make her vision for the
department a success. One of these goals involves looking at
what it means to invest in lifelong learning and skill
development. "It is one thing to talk about it," Herman
said. "It is another thing to ask how we will do
it."
The other four goals are:
• to move people from welfare and
into jobs;
• to strengthen pension protection
laws and expand pension coverage;
• to monitor and enforce
labor-related laws (contract compliance and
antidiscrimination, for example); and
• to help to make workplaces more
family friendly so that individuals can balance work and
personal needs.
According to Herman, women earn 50
percent less than men in retirement, so it is important to
look at ways that pension coverage can be expanded,
particularly among smaller businesses.
To make work places more family friendly,
Herman is concentrating on two strategies--taking a "very
aggressive" approach in the child care area and using her
position to champion such initiatives as the "Best
Practices" program, a privately funded effort that showcases
creative solutions to conflicts that arise with family and
work.
Herman was in Austin to speak at an
Austin Area Urban League dinner on February 3 and offered to
meet the next day with a labor law class taught by LBJ
School Professor Ray Marshall and UT Austin Law Professor
Jack Getman. The class is entitled "Violence in
Labor-Management Relations: Is Federal Law
Adequate?"
|
