National Skills Summit

National Skills Summit
Skills Summit Highlights

Statement from

Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive Vice President, AFL-CIO

Linda Chavez-Thompson, Executive VP, AFL-CIO

The real reason that each one of us is here is because we know how vital it is for us to close the skills gap in America's workplaces. We've set out on what Arthur Schlesinger calls "the search for remedy." I'd like to pay tribute to four individuals who do so much to lead that search...

Labor Secretary Alexis Herman, former Secretary Ray Marshall and two of the most creative, most effective activists in the union movement, Communications Workers of America President Morty Bahr, who chairs the AFL-CIO Education and Training Committee and Bruce Herman, the executive director of our new Working for America Institute.

Let me offer a personal observation. I've been part of the union movement for more than a quarter-century, and I love it with all my heart. And, I am absolutely convinced that for us to win our goals of higher pay, better benefits, and a voice in the work-place for working families...

A big part of our strategy has to be making more training and retraining available for more of those working women and men who need it. All of us know that this is a huge challenge -- and we embrace it. But we also know very well what we're up against. In a nation that believes in equality, there's a terrible inequality in access to the training that workers desperately need.

Look at the statistics on who gets skill improvement training. The sad fact is that the people on the top rungs of the corporate ladder get much more of it. For instance, if you're a management support specialist, your chances of getting training from your employer are 28 percent. If you are a technical professional, your chances of receiving employer-paid training increase to 31 percent. But if you're a machine operator, your chances go way down to just 8 percent. If you are a laborer, only 5 percent. When you see those figures, you can guess who is likely to move ahead and who is not. Who has a bright future and who doesn't.

Where are the remedies? How can we expand the chances for job training, including more opportunities for working people who need it the most?

One great remedy would be for the federal government to provide the same legal protection against discrimination in job training as it currently does for pensions. But there's also a tremendous amount that the union movement can do and is doing.

I've seen it everywhere from Maine to Honolulu.

When we go to the bargaining table, we press not only for higher wages and benefits but also for high-quality training and education for real jobs. And I can tell you something very interesting. Those twin goals actually go hand in hand, time and time again. When we've won higher wages, that's a good incentive for employers to support job training. Employers will support job training because it means that workers will be more productive in the long run. And when working people have a voice in what training programs look like through their unions, then the training works better. For the workers. For everybody.

Inside the AFL-CIO, it is our new Working for America Institute that's carrying the ball. Bruce and the Institute are building new partnerships with employers to identify skill shortages and then train workers in those skills. We call them "high road partnerships and we already have plenty of success stories all over the economy. Under Morty Bahr's leadership, the Communications Workers of America have built some terrific high road partnerships in the workplace but there are also lots of others, everywhere from nursing homes, to auto factories, to gaming, to agriculture.

The test of a high road partnership is that everyone benefits. Let me give you an example. Just last week, the HR director of a small manufacturing shop in Milwaukee told us what the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership means for them. In the past, when the company was looking for good new workers, it felt like it was looking for a needle in a haystack. The company would go through 200 temporary workers before they'd settle on five permanent workers. But now, the Partnership has made it easier and fairer and more efficient. The company interviewed 40 prospective workers, and they offered jobs to seven on condition they passed a four-week training course. Five of them did the training -- all five of them were hired - and every one of them has now passed the probationary period and joined the union.

This is exactly what a high road partnership is all about. The company won -- because it got 5 qualified new employees without all the expense and headaches of the past. The workers won -- because they got good new jobs with all the benefits of union membership. And Milwaukee won -- because five people who had been unemployed are now proud and productive members of the community. I can promise you that we in the union movement will continue to fight for what is right. We will fight for more high-quality job training that will close the skills gap.

But I can also promise you that we can not do it alone. We're eager to work in partnership alongside each of you from government, and management, and the academic community. Together, we can build an economy in which all working women and men have the training and education they need to be their very best. Together, we can make a community of fairness and opportunity and promise.

If we don't do it, nobody will. And we will.