PA Women to Head Dept of Labor Bureau

Excerpt from one of today's White House blog entries:

Sara Manzano-Diaz was nominated to lead the Women's Bureau at the Department of Labor. For almost 90 years, the Department of Labor's Women's Bureau has worked to improve the status of wage-earning women, improve their working conditions, and advance their opportunities for profitable employment. The Bureau is the only federal agency mandated to represent the needs of wage-earning women. In 1922, it launched a major investigation on the conditions facing African-American women in industry. In the 1950's, it examined the dynamic situation of older women as office workers. In the 1980's, it broke new ground on the plight of contingent workers, and in the 1990's it researched and reported on domestic violence, long before experts considered the topic relevant to the workplace.

Sara is uniquely qualified to lead the Women's Bureau. She has spent her career in public service advocating on behalf of working class families, women, and girls. She has more than 25 years of federal, state, and judicial experience including 16 years in senior management. Most recently, she was appointed by Governor Edward G. Rendell as Deputy Secretary for Regulatory Programs at the Pennsylvania Department of State. As Deputy Secretary, and the highest-ranking Latina in Pennsylvania state government, Ms. Manzano-Diaz is responsible for protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the public by overseeing the licensure of approximately 1 million professionals. Previously, she served as Deputy General Counsel for Civil Rights and Litigation at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, where she enforced fair housing, civil rights, and anti-discrimination laws. She has served as Co-Chair of The Forum of Executive Women's Mentoring Committee, which mentors young professional women as they begin their careers, and also participated in Madrinas, a program that provides mentors for at-risk Latina girls to encourage them to finish high school and attend college.