2. Training and Retraining

Our first action proposal is addressed to the entire group attending this conference. We ask your support for the following statement:

We, the participants at this conference, intend to state strongly to Judy Erola (Minister Responsible for the Status of Women) and Lloyd Axworthy (Minister of Employment and Immigration), in a telegram, the following:

• Given that training and retraining for women are necessarily on a large scale

• Given that employers have not shouldered the responsibility for training, and that no ways are used now to compel employers to train

We insist that employers be compelled to train and retrain women, and that the mechanisms for compelling them include, but not be limited to:

1. Federal contract compliance
2. Laws entrenching employment rights, whenever technological change, is introduced.'
   “ Our group has obtained a commitment from CCLOW to submit the following demands to the Canada Employment and Immigration Centre:

• To include in the National Training Program a computer literacy program, to orient women to occupations in the computer field.

• To use the Skill Growth Fund to provide hardware to colleges for delivery of same.

• To considerably scale down dollars spent on traditional office training in geographic areas where automation is changing these jobs.

• To ensure availability to women of specific skill courses in technology.

• To ensure Women's Outreach projects and Women's Employment Centres are fully informed and involved in launching these courses and reaching their clients with information on their availability. A personal commitment was made by Joan Woodcock Goodman, of Saskatchewan Working Women:

• To develop a method, and to disseminate new technology training information and information relating to control over our work lives, locally, to women looking at training and retraining. This is to be done in conjunction with local women's groups, community groups, community colleges, unions, etc.

• To work with local and regional CEIC personnel to ensure good training opportunities in high tech are available to women (both industrial and institutional). These opportunities are to include all support services required by women. Clare Devlin, Coordinator of Women's Programs at Algonquin College in Ottawa, announced her intention to propose to Equal Opportunities sections in the federal government departments, designs for general or pre-skill training programs which can lead women to a greater understanding of opportunities and specific training programs. This commitment is based on the belief that the federal government is the major employer of under-employed women.