Martha Baker

Martha Baker is an independent consultant and founder of Equity in Education & Employment which provides program design, advocacy and training to improve opportunities for women and girls. The issue of work-family balance is her present focus, working locally and nationally to secure leave policies to enhance family infrastructure. She is on the steering committee of the NYS Paid Family Leave Coalition and the Multi-State Working Families Consortium.

Martha was Executive Director/CEO of Nontraditional Employment for Women (NEW), a nonprofit that promotes women's economic self-sufficiency through training, placement and advocacy for women in construction and other skilled blue collar trades. After creating a report entitled Vocational Education: Opportunities for Young Women, she was appointed to the NYC Dept. of Education Steering Committee to Restructure Career Technical Education.

Prior to leading NEW, Ms. Baker was Executive Director of the NYC Commission on the Status of Women under Mayor David Dinkins and Commission Chair Bella Abzug. She coordinated a yearlong citywide study of sexual harassment, co-authoring The Prevention of Sexual Harassment in the Municipal Workplace and establishing a new procedure for reporting, investigating and resolving complaints and What Can Be Done About Sexual Assault on College Campuses. As Deputy Director of the NYS Workers' Compensation Board she developed Safety in the Workplace, a program and procedures guide to enable the staff and public to interact in a hostile-free work environment. For much of her adult life, she worked with Bella Abzug to expand the role of women in society.

As a Conference designer, Ms Baker created WOMEN RE:BUILD NY, a 2 day conference held in April,2007, bringing together government and industry leaders, unions, educational institutions and tradeswomen. The conference addressed the need for protocols and project agreements to ensure training, hiring and retention of women.

In addition to ERLC, Martha’s affiliations include: Girls Speak Out International – Board Chair, A Better Balance – Board Member, NY State Paid Family Leave Coalition – Steering Committee, Multi-State Consortium for Working Families – Executive Committee.