Quantity and Quality of Jobs for Women and Minorities at Risk in New Communications Environment
Feature Story by civilrights.org staff - 8/1/2006
Unionized blue-collar and office jobs in traditional media once led to a middle-class lifestyle, with good opportunities for women and minorities. Now, lower-paying jobs in new communications media are replacing them.A panel of civil rights advocates and communications policy experts at a July 25 briefing attributed these trends to regulatory change in the aftermath of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, new technologies, and the increasing concentration of control of media resources.
The speakers had come together at an event co-sponsored by the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights Education Fund (LCCREF) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA) to discuss two new reports from LCCREF and the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR).
IWPR's report, Making the Right Call: Jobs and Diversity in the Communications and Media Sector, analyzes data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the EEOC, and the U.S. Census Bureau, finding that today's shift to "new" wireless media concentrates women and minorities in lower-paying jobs without the union protections of the "old" traditional media.
LCCREF's analysis, Employment Trends in the Communications and Media Industries, discusses how rapid media consolidation over the last decade threatens the quality of job opportunities for women and minorities.
The reports were released at a time when new telecommunications legislation is being considered by Congress and changes to media ownership rules are being contemplated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
Underscoring the importance of strong media ownership rules, Wade Henderson, executive director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, said, "In the media industries, where the voice of minorities and women is so critical, we find growing concentration blocks that voice."
Linda Foley, president of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, said, "Women and minorities bring different viewpoints to news and entertainment that is absolutely essential to our diverse democracy. Concentration of media ownership by corporate giants exacerbates the historic under-representation of women and minorities in our media industries. Preserving and expanding diversity of media ownership is absolutely critical to growing employment for women and minorities in the media industry."
According to the IWPR report, despite the explosion in new information technologies, overall job growth in the communications and media sector (14 percent) has lagged behind job growth in the rest of the economy (22 percent).
The report also found that women and minorities in wired telecom, the most highly unionized sector, have the highest earnings. Yet, wage disparities by race and gender persist.
All of the speakers acknowledged the limitations of existing data, which allowed for sample sizes sufficient to identify only two race/ethnicity categories: Non-Hispanic Whites and Minorities.
The problem of limited data is not a new one for the Asian American community, according to Karen K. Narasaki, president of the Asian American Justice Center. "Asian Americans are often lumped into the 'other' category or not reported at all. Limited and aggregated data mask the real problems. For an accurate picture of the current employment trends, detailed information is critical to ensuring equal opportunity in the communications industry," Narasaki said.
Shaheena Ahmad Simons, D.C. regional counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, agreed. "Although the Latino workforce continues to be increasingly integral to the American economy, Latino labor remains concentrated in certain industries and vastly underrepresented in others," she said. "Complete and meaningful data will be essential to assessing this segregation, and to promoting the advancement of Latinos in fields such as the communications industry."
Representing a community for which data is entirely lacking, Andrew Imparato, president and CEO of the American Association of People with Disabilities (AAPD), said, "Since there is no requirement to collect data affirmatively about persons with disabilities working in the television cable systems, such as is required for race and sex in Sec. 634 of the Communications Act, it is difficult to ascertain the employment situation for persons with disabilities in this industry. However, based on anecdotal reports, and the continuing overwhelmingly high levels of unemployment among persons with disabilities, AAPD believes that this industry could voluntarily take steps to hire more persons with disabilities."
Gloria Tristani, president of the Benton Foundation and a former FCC commissioner moderated the July 25 panel, which in addition to LCCR's Henderson and CWA's Foley, included Heidi Hartmann, IWPR president; and David Honig, executive director of the Minority Media and Telecommunications Council.
