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Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao
Dept. of Labor
Annual National Equal Opportunity Training Conference
July 25, 2001
Good morning, and thank you all for being here. And thanks for that
lovely introduction, Pat.
Pat's doing a fabulous job as the Assistant Secretary for Administration
and Management, and we're all fortunate to have someone of his caliber as part
of our team.
Wasn't Annabelle Lockhart wonderful with her insightful remarks? I want
to thank her for taking on the new responsibility of Acting Director of Wage
and Hour.
And I want to thank Alice McKinney from the Alabama Department of
Industrial Relations for joining us today.
It's a pleasure for me to welcome all of you to the Department of
Labor's 12th annual National Equal Opportunity Training Conference.
As all of you know, we at the Department of Labor are committed to
ensuring that our programs are free of discrimination, and this conference is
an important opportunity for all of us to refocus on that goal, to share our
experiences, and to exchange ideas about new ways to make further progress in
this ongoing effort.
And it is particularly appropriate that we gather here now to assess our
progress and plot our course for future action because tomorrow will be the
11th anniversary of the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the
most important civil rights legislation in more than a generation.
That bill was signed into law, as all of you know, by President George
Bush in 1990, who I was honored to serve. Today, under the leadership of
another president named George W. Bush, a further initiative called the New
Freedom Initiative has been launched. We are working hard in the Department of
Labor and other federal agencies to redouble our efforts to implement both the
letter and the spirit of the law of the ADA.
In its first decade, America has worked hard to meet the physical
requirements of the ADA to envelop Americans with disabilities into mainstream
life… building wheelchair ramps, and so forth. But today, we are reaching
higher. We are working to find new ways to effectively include disabled
Americans in our economic and social life.
As all of you know, I've made President Bush's New Freedom and
Faith-Based initiatives centerpieces of my agenda for the Department's efforts
to address the needs of America's 21st century workforce.
Later today, Department staff will hold plenary sessions on these
initiatives, and I hope they will be helpful.
These initiatives hold tremendous promise for the Department's efforts
to help build a better civil society in America - to meet both the economic and
social challenges of this new century. To help strengthen the fabric of our
communities, and open the doors of opportunity - one of the most fundamental,
defining characteristics of American life.
Our mission at the Department of Labor - to give hope to all Americans,
to bring new opportunities to all.
In his inaugural address, President Bush spoke eloquently of this issue.
He said:
"The ambitions of some Americans are limited by failing schools and
hidden prejudice and of circumstances of their birth. And sometimes our
differences run so deep it seems we share a continent but not a country. We do
not accept this, and we will not allow it. Our unity, our union is a serious
work of leaders and citizens and every generation. And this is my solemn
pledge: I will work to build a single nation of justice and opportunity."
The president's pledge is our common mission.
The challenges to that mission are complex and deeply rooted.
Some we can meet ourselves, at the Department of Labor. Others require
partnerships with other federal agencies, such as the Department of Education -
and we're working to develop those relationships.
And others still will only yield to the dedicated efforts of people and
organizations closer to the people in need - state and local governments,
churches and charities, mentors and ministers.
We all need to work together in our common pursuit of a single goal: a
nation where every person is given a chance to make the most of themselves - to
develop their God-given potential, and follow their dreams.
From my perspective, as the Secretary of Labor, the single greatest
obstacle to that vision of truly equal opportunity that we all share is the
skills gap.
As America moves towards an increasingly information-based, high tech
economy, American businesses are creating thousands of new, highly skilled,
well paid jobs each year - great jobs, with safe working conditions and nearly
limitless potential for advancement.
In fact, our colleagues at the Department of Commerce estimate that
nearly half of all American workers will be employed in information technology
industries within the next five years.
At the same time, however, the people who need those jobs the most are
the very people who are least prepared to take them, because they lack the
skills that the high tech economy demands. And the results are clear, and
tragic. If you have skills, the doors of opportunity are open in America - but
if you don't, your options are very limited.
The numbers paint a stark picture.
The Department's monthly unemployment figures show a consistent decline
in traditional manufacturing jobs, while the demand for highly-skilled workers
remains strong.
And the earnings gap between college and high-school graduates has grown
dramatically, from a 38 percent gap in 1979 to over 70 percent today.
In fact, right now, the unemployment rate for a high-school dropout is
four times the rate for college graduates.
For the millions of Americans who don't have the skills they need to
succeed in an information age economy, this is a crisis. And we can't afford to
turn our backs on them.
Fortunately, real progress is already being made. Most importantly,
President Bush has been remarkably successful already in focusing national
attention on the need for radical reforms of our public education system.
Congress has essentially approved the president's reform agenda, and in the
coming years, I think we'll see significant changes as a result.
America pioneered public education in the 19th century, only to see our
system struggle badly in the latter half of the 20th century. In the first
decade of the 21st century, we've got to implement educational reform. Better
education and better skills will be the key to our continued economic vitality
as well.
But for millions of Americans who are already in the workforce, reforms
to elementary and secondary schools will come too late. And that's why I'm
determined to redouble our efforts to provide better workforce training
programs for every American who needs new skills.
We can't do it alone - but working in partnership with the Department of
Education, with community colleges, with organized labor, businesses large and
small, with churches and local governments, I think we can make a real
difference.
And I want to thank everyone here for your hard work in helping me with
that mission.
Thank you.
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