The Women's Bureau of the U.S. Department of Labor was created by an act of Congress on June 5, 1920. The federal statute establishing the Women's Bureau specifies that the director of the Bureau is to be a woman, appointed by the president by and with the advise and consent of the Senate. The Women's Bureau was given the duty of formulating standards and policies that promote the welfare of wage-earning women, improving their working conditions, increasing their efficiency, and advancing their opportunities for profitable employment. The Bureau was also given the authority to investigate and report to the Department of Labor all matters pertaining to the welfare of women in industry and to publish the results of its investigations in a manner directed by the Secretary of Labor.

The Women's Bureau was born out of a time in which women worked long hours in order to feed and clothe their families rather than to afford luxuries and received low wages relative to their male counterparts. In addition, they often worked in unhealthy or unsafe conditions. The Bureau investigated and reported on the working conditions of African-American women in the 1920's. The Bureau also helped insure that women were covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act, passed in 1938 primarily to set minimum wage standards and overtime pay requirements, and played an important role in the passage of the Equal Pay Act in 1963. Recognizing that working women often put in a full day at work and faced most or all of the necessary housework afterwards, the Women's Bureau established a multi-media Work and Family Clearinghouse to provide possible solutions to problems balancing work and home life. The Bureau also worked for the passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act in 1993.

As an agency of the Department of Labor, the Bureau continues to participate in policy making and program design and development and to coordinate Department programs that affect women. Women's Bureau regional offices implement national programs at the local level and provide a local resource for working women. The Bureau sponsors demonstration projects to help women enter the work force, advance in their careers, or change careers and provides grants for programs designed to help working women. For example, the New Jersey Department of Labor and Workforce Development received a $500,000 grant in 2001 to start a Women's Distance Learning program to allow low-income single mothers to receive education and training to enter or advance in the workplace on their own schedules and from their own homes. The Women's Bureau also awarded, in conjunction with the Employment and Training Administration, awarded $8.6 million between 1994 and 2003 to community-based organizations to provide technical assistance to employers in recruiting and training women to serve in apprenticeships and non-traditional occupations.

In recent years, the Bush administration has received criticism for its apparent lack of support for programs geared toward working women in general and the Women's Bureau in particular. After closing the White House Office for Women's Initiatives and Outreach, the administration formulated plans to close all 10 regional offices of the Women's Bureau. That plan was abandoned only after the White House and Department of Labor were deluged with letters, emails, and phone calls criticizing it. The plan was also widely condemned by newspaper articles and editorials.

Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.