This file was prepared for electronic distribution by the inforM staff. Questions or comments should be directed to inform-editor@umail.umd.edu. JUNE 1993 THE GLASS CEILING COMMISSION MISSION STATEMENT The Glass Ceiling Commission will: 1) build public awareness of the specific behaviors, practices, and attitudes that either cause or prevent advancement by minorities and women to leadership and management positions; 2) develop concrete policy recommendations for improving and expanding employment opportunities for minorities and women; and 3) provide leadership in developing and communicating the Commission's equal employment opportunity agenda. ISSUES AND STRATEGIES * Examining how the glass ceiling is generated by various types of discrimination at all levels of employment: In order to develop public understanding of the glass ceiling and to build public support for policies to eliminate it, the Commission should examine its component parts, i.e., the specific behaviors, practices, and attitudes that prevent advancement by minorities and women. Examples of the components of "glass ceiling" discrimination include: pay inequities, sex- and race-based stereotyping, sexual and racial harassment, the lack of family-friendly work place practices, "mommy-track" policies, and pregnancy discrimination. Indeed, such discrimination prevents most minorities and women from ever reaching positions where they can even see a glass ceiling. Specifically, the Commission's "advancement study" should include an examination of the ways in which the glass ceiling is generated by various forms of sex- and race-based discrimination at every step and every level of the work force. (1) To accomplish this, the Commission could engage in fact-finding hearings and could solicit and accept testimony, statements, studies, and reports that address issues such as: stereotyping (e.g., situations where subjective decision-making processes work to exclude minorities and women); the wage gap (examining how minorities and women dc not receive the same rewards for education and experience as do white men); family-friendly workplace policy and/or harassment. Throughout this work, the commission should address the glass ceiling phenomenon as it affects both race and gender issues, with particular emphasis on the barriers faced by minority women due to double discrimination. (In its initial 1991 report on the glass ceiling initiative, the Department of Labor concluded that the barriers faced by minority women "appear to be nearly impenetrable".) All too often, efforts to examine and eliminate the glass ceiling have focused solely on gender--or, alternatively, solely on race--to the exclusion of the unique needs of minority women. * Linking glass ceiling issues to the economic recovery: The Commission should use its visibility to help make clear to policymakers and to the public that improving employment opportunities for minorities and women must be a key component of any plan to improve the economy, because gender- and race-based job inequities not only unfairly and inefficiently limit the incomes of workers and their families but also limit the nation's competitiveness to the extent that the best talent available is not used. Similarly, the Commission should also examine and explain the ways in which the glass ceiling depresses productivity by limiting opportunities for the minority workers and female workers upon which our economy has become increasingly reliant in light of shifting work force demographics. * Providing leadership in developing and promoting the Commission's equal employment opportunity agenda: The Commission should use its visibility, including any hearing processes and the release of its report to the President and the Congress, to create opportunities to increase public and political support for policies and practices to eliminate the glass ceiling. For example, the Commission should use its specific mandate for policy recommendations on enforcement techniques as the basis for providing leadership in developing and promoting the Commission's EEO agenda. The report could include policy recommendations on ensuring that the jobs components of the President's economic plan includes measures that facilitate equal access by women and minorities to newly created jobs that have possibilities for advancement. As another example, the Commission's report should include recommendations that address the federal EEO enforcement agencies -- the EEOC, the OFCCP, and the DOJ. * Continuing to build public support for policies designed to increase diversity and to break through the glass ceiling: The Commission could use the time remaining between the 1994 release of its report and the termination of the Commission in November 1995 in several ways, including: - publicizing its study and report to build support among the public policymakers for measures that expand equal - employment opportunity and thus break through the glass ceiling; - commissioning public opinion research, such as focus group research, to develop strategies for building public awareness of the need for, and methods of achieving, diversity in employment; and - commissioning further research on the economic case for diversity as beneficial to the corporate bottom line and our nation's long-term economic health. ADDITIONAL AVENUES FOR GLASS CEILING ACTIVITY Apprenticeship and Skills Certification Up to now, the public's principle perception of the Glass Ceiling Commission activities has been the advancement of women into mid and upper level white-collar corporate positions. This perception must be changed to include minorities' and women's advancement potential in a broader range of occupational groupings, including the skilled trades. Too often, minorities and women are steered into jobs which limit their career growth, using as a rationale that they have insufficient or inappropriate skills. Linking the department's efforts to improve and expand apprenticeship programs and certify skill competencies to the Commission's mandate to encourage the improvement of career development for minorities and women is a logical and necessary match. Not only will these efforts help to shatter the glass ceiling, but they will also enable an increasingly important segment of the work force to rise above the "sticky floor" which traps too many in dead-end, low paying jobs. It will also enlarge the scope of the Glass Ceiling Commission's mandate and give its work relevance to minorities and women who do not asp re to corporate positions. Valuing Diversity Smart companies have been fostering work force diversity for years, in preparing for competition in an increasingly multicultural global marketplace. For smart managers in high performance organizations, valuing diversity is above all a pragmatic strategy for sustaining growth in an era of intense competition and changing labor force composition. The Glass Ceiling Commission must emphasize the benefits to all organizations of having a work force where the energies and creative talents of all its workers are maximized and valued. Bottom-Line Benefits In the Commission's efforts to enlighten and encourage organizations to open avenues of career advancement and enhancement to minorities and women, it should promote the concept that this is more than an affirmative action issue which may have enforcement consequences. The idea is that it is a smart strategic business decision. Employers need to protect and preserve their investments in their human resources by providing opportunities to fully utilize the skills of all their workers or lose them to competitors. June 28, 1993