Issue date: 11/18/02 Section: Front Page

With too many skilled jobs and not enough trained workers to fill them, it is imperative that America revitalize its workforce training programs, U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao said Friday in a speech at Texas A&M.

Chao, speaking at the George Bush Presidential Conference Center, said the business community, schools and the non-profit sector must collaborate to match workers' skills with jobs that are available.

"The government can't do it alone," Chao said. "Employers know where the jobs are and what skills are needed, and we need to enlist their help."

She stressed the importance of volunteerism, saying non-profit organizations play a critical role in tutoring and mentoring those who need to learn new job skills. Chao, who served as director of Peace Corps under former President George Bush, said she sent the first Peace Corps volunteers into the former Soviet republics to assist in education and training efforts.

"We saw first hand the transforming power of free enterprise and volunteerism," she said.

Since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, applications for Peace Corps and AmeriCorps have increased dramatically, Chao said.

The department of labor spends $12 billion annually on workforce training for the unemployed she said, including 1,800 local career centers that assist with resume writing, job interviewing and other skills. Chao said she plans to link these centers closer to the local business community. She said schools will also play a key role in closing the skills gap.

Over the past decade, public schools have emphasized preparing all students to go to college and have neglected vocational programs, Chao said.

High schools should partner with community colleges and local businesses to offer certification programs that will equip students with marketable skills once they graduate, she said.

During a question and answer period, Chao addressed the looming strike among longshoremen in ports on the West Coast. With more than 40 percent of America's international trade passing through the western ports, a strike by the 10,500 longshoremen would deal a temporary blow to the U.S. economy, she said.

The ports were shut down for 12 days during the summer, causing more than $1 billion in economic losses each day, Chao said. Agricultural produce was rotting on the docks and auto manufacturers started laying off workers as parts were not delivered. On Chao's recommendation, President Bush invoked a rarely used authority to end the strike and order the ports re-opened. Chao said Bush's order expires Dec. 27, and said she was not optimistic that the workers and port management would reach an agreement.

Chao criticized labor union leaders in general for not representing rank-and-file members.

"(Labor unions) are an apparatus of the Democrat party, and its important for union leaders to understand at least one-third of their members are Republican," she said. "I exhort union leaders to fairly represent their members and not just parochial interests."

Chao said her department will work with any unions that are willing, but pointed out that organized labor is losing relevancy in the modern workforce. Only 9 percent of the private sector workforce is unionized, Chao said.

Prior to her nomination as labor secretary, Chao was president of United Way of America and worked at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy think tank. Chao is married to Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky.

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